This case addresses the Illinois Department of Correction’s (IDOC) treatment of a prisoner during his twenty year stay in solitary confinement. Initially, the prisoner had been sentenced to serve seven years in prison as a young adult. However, during his first years in prison, he accumulated infractions for violent behavior caused by an untreated personality disorder. As a result, the prison extended his sentence to almost two lifetimes in solitary confinement.

In response, on October 28th, 2018, he filed this lawsuit against the IDOC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Represented by several private civil rights attorneys, the plaintiff brought claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. He alleged that the IDOC had violated his rights under the 8th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. The plaintiff also claimed the defendant discriminated against him through its failure to provide treatment or reasonable accommodations in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. The plaintiff sought attorney’s fees as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

Specifically, the complaint outlined the conditions he faced while in solitary confinement. The plaintiff alleged the IDOC did not provide him with any way to challenge his placement in solitary confinement. The plaintiff spent twenty years in a cell the size of half a parking space with no sensory stimulation or human contact. Throughout the twenty years, the prison recorded dozens of instances of the plaintiff engaging in serious self-mutilation and increasingly aggressive behavior. The plaintiff alleged he was never given the acute psychiatric care he needed for his declining mental health. The plaintiff was released from prison in August 2018 as the result of a habeas petition.

This case was assigned to Judge Sara Ellis and was ongoing as of February 2019.

Sarah Reasoner - 02/28/2019


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