The plaintiffs in this lawsuit were entitled to be released from prison long before the COVID-19 pandemic began. When the pandemic and they were still in prison, the plaintiffs sought a court order compelling their release.

Under Illinois law, most sex offenders must complete an indefinite term of “Mandatory Supervised Release” following their prison term. This “MSR” must be completed while living at an approved host site. If a person cannot find a qualifying host site for his MSR, he remains in prison until he can find qualifying housing; for many indigent inmates, this becomes a de facto life sentence. Hundreds of Illinois prisoners have had their proposed host sites rejected solely because of a statute which bars them from serving their MSR at the same address where another sex offender lives. Many of these inmates have been in prison for years beyond their release date.

On January 15, 2020, in Murphy v. Raoul, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that it was unconstitutional, as contrary to the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, to hold people in prison past the completion of their prison term, and ordered the Illinois Department of Corrections to release all such prisoners by January 2021. 6 months later, IDOC had released only 3 individuals as a result of that order (each of those individuals had been in prison more than 8 years past their release date), and there were still nearly 300 who had not been released.

In early April 2020, COVID-19 began infecting IDOC staff and inmates, and an inmate filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on April 5, 2020. The plaintiff was a member of the Murphy class, but although he had completed his prison sentence in December 2018, he had not yet been released from prison to begin his term of Mandatory Supervised Release. He and his family had proposed multiple host sites, but IDOC had rejected every site. His most recent proposal was denied because of the presence of another sex offender at the same address.

Due to the urgent threat of COVID-19, the plaintiff, represented by private counsel, asked the court to order his immediate release to his proposed host site. The case was originally assigned to Judge Manish S. Shah, but reassigned to Judge Virginia M. Kendall, the presiding judge in Murphy.

The plaintiff sought to represent a class of inmates who had completed their prison sentence but remained incarcerated because their host sites were denied under the “One Per Address” statute. He sued under 42 U.S.C. §1983, alleging that IDOC’s One Per Address statute (and the resulting de facto life sentences) violated the Eighth Amendment. He further sought an injunction prohibiting IDOC from continuing to enforce the One Per Address statute, and sought attorneys’ fees and costs.

The court ordered the plaintiff released to MSR on April 8, 2020, ruling that he was “clearly suffering a constitutional harm each day he [was] detained past his release date,” and that “that harm can only be remedied by release.” IDOC had failed to provide any rational basis for the One Per Address requirement, and had not offered any evidence to show that it was rationally justified.

On April 28, 2020, more than a dozen additional Murphy class members filed an amended complaint, adding a Fourteenth Amendment claim. They sought to represent the same class that the original plaintiff had proposed. The court ordered their release to MSR on May 13, 2020.

Yet another group of plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint on May 26, 2020; their release was ordered on June 3, 2020.

The court then granted class certification on July 1, 2020; the plaintiffs moved for summary judgment the same day. As of July 27, 2020, that motion is pending.

Gregory Marsh - 07/28/2020


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