On March 2, 1983, Greg Horn, a 14 year-old minor in custody at the Oldham County Jail ("OCJ") and his mother filed a class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Oldham County, Kentucky and the administrators of the OCJ. The plaintiffs, represented by private attorneys and the Youth Law Center of San Francisco, California, alleged poor sanitary conditions of confinement, failure to provide personal hygiene materials, failure to provide adequate educational materials, failure to separate juvenile detainees from adult offenders, lack of medical or psychological screening for incoming detainees, inadequate staff, failure to supervise detainees, and because of these failures, the wrongful death of Mrs. Horn's other son Robert Lee (who had committed suicide during unsupervised confinement). The suit was also filed under the Juvenile Justice Act, 42 U.S.C. § 5601 et seq.

On January 11, 1985, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky (Judge Thomas Austin Ballantine, Jr.) approved a Consent Decree. The wrongful death claim was settled, and the Defendants agreed to cease use of OCJ for detention of juveniles. The consent decree, however, did not apply to persons under 18 years of age who are charged with serious offenses and who have been transferred from the jurisdiction of the District Court to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court. There is no docket or further information for this case.

Greg Venker - 05/18/2006


compress summary