On March 22, 1988, inmates in Orleans Parish, Louisiana filed this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana against the sheriff of Orleans Parish. The complaint was originally filed pro se and the Tulane Law Clinic was appointed to represent the plaintiffs. The ACLU National Prison Project and ACLU of Louisiana also joined as counsel for plaintiffs. In their complaint, the inmates, housed at the Orleans Parish Prison, the Community Correctional Center, and the Emergency Housing Unit, alleged unconstitutional conditions of confinement and the denial of good time credits. Specifically, they claimed they were denied adequate sanitation facilities, medical care, dental care, mental health care, exercise opportunities, healthy food, educational and religious programming and access to lawyers. They also alleged that the correctional staff were not given proper training and the inmate disciplinary system was constitutionally deficient. The inmates sought declaratory and injunctive relief for the unconstitutional conditions and were granted class certification on behalf of all current and future inmates confined within the custody of the criminal sheriff of Orleans Parish.

The plaintiffs' claims were subsequently litigated in Robinson v. Phelps and ultimately formed the basis for re-opening Hamilton v. Morial, JC-LA-0008, a longstanding case challenging conditions in the New Orleans Parish Prison, which was still being litigated as of May 9, 2006, after the date that Magistrate Judge Alma Chasez closed this case on September 1, 2000.

Tom Madison - 09/22/2006


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