On March 21, 1979, inmates filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, against jail officials of Lauderdale County, alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement. On November 29, 1982, the court (Judge Junius Foy Guin Jr.) entered an injunction prohibiting the defendants from housing state prisoners in the Lauderdale County Jail for more than 30 days, in order to alleviate overcrowding and associated health problems at the jail. In 1991, the Governor of Alabama and corrections officials were held in contempt for violating the injunction, and in 1993, Lauderdale County constructed a new jail. On July 2, 1997, the Alabama Department of Corrections (DOC) moved to terminate the injunction under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The district court (Judge Guin) denied the motion and the DOC appealed. On September 28, 1998, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Judge James Edmondson) found that the evidence was insufficient to prove that a current and ongoing violation of a federal right existed (there was no evidence that the new jail was overcrowded) and therefore remanded the case, ordering that the injunction be terminated. Parrish v. Alabama Department of Corrections, 156 F.3d 1128 (11th Cir. 1998). On November 3, 1998, the district court (Judge Guin) ordered that the injunction be terminated pursuant to the mandate of the Eleventh Circuit. The clerks office marked the case closed on January 21, 1999.

Jaclyn Adams - 03/17/2006


compress summary