On August 12, 2003, four pretrial detainees in the Cook County Jail brought this suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Court of Illinois on behalf of those suffering from mental illness while confined. The plaintiffs sued Cook County, the president of the Cook County Board, the Cook County sheriff, and the Director of the Cook County Department of Health Services under 42 U.S.C. §12101, 42 U.S.C. §1983, and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The plaintiffs sought injunctive and declarative relief from the defendants' policy and practice of disallowing inmates with mental illness from participating in prerelease programs, claiming that this was in violation of the ADA. The plaintiffs also challenged the defendants' policy of discharging such individuals without providing them medication and referrals to manage their mental illness as violative of the Due Process Clause of Fourteenth Amendment and the ADA.

On September 9, 2003, the defendants moved to dismiss both counts claiming that the plaintiffs failed to exhaust administrative remedies, that three of the defendants did not meet the definition of public entity under the ADA and that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their claims. On March 2, 2004, Judge Elaine Bucklo granted defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the plaintiffs fell under a decree that authorized pre-release programs to alleviate overcrowding in the county jails. The judge held that because the plaintiffs claims were inextricably intertwined to the decree, the original court monitoring that decree was the proper forum to hear a proposed modification. Thus, the complaint was dismissed without prejudice, allowing plaintiffs to refile their claims before the appropriate presiding judges.

The plaintiffs filed a motion to alter and amend the judgment on March 16, 2004 which was initially denied. On May 5, 2004, the plaintiffs appealed this denial to the Seventh Circuit, but on October 26, 2004, Judge Elaine Bucklo granted the plaintiffs' motion for relief and the case was reopened to rule on the previously filed motion to dismiss (the reason for this change is unclear).

On February 1, 2005, Judge Elaine Bucklo granted the defendants' motion and dismissed the case. The court applied an exhaustion requirement to the ADA claim that inmates were prevented from participating in prerelease programs. 2005 WL 283419. The court also found plaintiffs had failed to exhaust administrative remedies and that they lacked standing to bring the claim (all four had been released since the complaint was filed), but did not address the issue of whether defendants were not proper under the ADA.

Abigail DeHart - 02/14/2017


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