In 1972, plaintiffs filed a pro se complaint alleging that conditions at the Allen County Jail were unbearable. The district court for the Northern District of Ohio (Judge Don J. Young) treated the pro se petition as a class action complaint and appointed counsel from the Advocates for Basic Legal Equity (ABLE). The parties negotiated a settlement agreement regarding ventilation, mail censorship, commissary privileges, visiting hours and facilities, jail population, plumbing, inmates' personal items, counseling and medical services, and a classification system. A second consent order followed that required defendants to allow inmates awaiting trial a reasonable number of local telephone calls and to hold a due process hearing before any inmate could be placed in solitary confinement.

In 1973, plaintiffs moved for award of attorney's fees, and the district court granted the motion. Incarcerated Men of Allen Co. v. Fair, 376 F. Supp. 483 (N.D. Ohio 1973). The county and the sheriff appealed, and the Sixth Circuit vacated the decision and remanded with instructions to reconsider an award of attorney's fees against individual defendants rather than the county. Incarcerated Men of Allen Co. v. Fair, 507 F.2d 281 (6th Cir. 1974). The docket for this case is not available on PACER, and therefore our information ends with the last reported decision in 1974.

Lauren Cutson - 05/26/2005


compress summary