On April 23, 1992, inmates at the Conecuh County Jail ("Jail") in Evergreen, Alabama filed a class action lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Alabama Department of Corrections in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama.

The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys from the Southern Center For Human Rights, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages for the alleged inhumane conditions of confinement they were subjected to at the Jail. The case was certified by the Court as a class action and, subsequently, the United States intervened pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1997 et seg.

After extensive discovery and several settlement conferences, the parties arrived at a settlement. On September 27, 1994, the proposed Consent Order setting forth the settlement agreement was preliminarily approved. After a hearing, the District Court (Magistrate Judge Bert W. Milling, Jr.) overruled objections to the settlement and approved and entered the Consent Order on January 24, 1995. The Consent Order resolved the class action claims, the individual inmate claims, and the claims of the United States. It called for a renovation of the Jail and substantive reforms in various policies and procedures which governed its operation.

Following the entry of the Consent Order, the defendants provided progress reports to the District Court detailing the status of implementing the specified reforms.

On July 11, 1996, counsel for all parties filed a joint motion to dismiss, stating that the defendants had substantially complied the terms of the Consent Order. The District Court granted the motion on July 24, 2006 and dismissed the case, retaining jurisdiction over the payment of attorneys' fees.

Subsequent to the dismissal order, plaintiffs filed a motion for relief from the judgment and a motion to Show Cause. On March 7, 1997, the District Court entered a stay order in the case and further ordered the defendants to submit monthly reports to counsel for plaintiffs, covering agreed upon topics which included the jail's population.

Thereafter, defendants filed a motion to terminate Consent Order pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act. For reasons that are not clear from the PACER docket, on 10/05/1998, the Court entered an order denying plaintiffs' motion for relief from the Order and denied as moot all other pending motions. We have no further information on the proceedings in this case.

Dan Dalton - 02/07/2007


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