The Michigan Messenger

In a case that has been going on for seven years, a federal jury has awarded a total of $145,000 to four people who were mistreated while detained on misdemeanor charges at the Saginaw County Jail.

The four plaintiffs in the case had been arrested at different times and in different cases and were awaiting arraignment or trial when they were forced to take off their clothes and stand naked in an administrative segregation cell in full view of employees at the jail and of inmates of the opposite gender. They were among dozens of detainees who refused to remove their clothes or who were “uncooperative.” Some were wrestled to the ground or sprayed with a chemical agent like pepper spray, then had their clothes cut off them with scissors.

Sue Letterman, a Birch Run resident who was forced to stay naked in a segregation cell for several hours, said she was too ashamed to come forward for some time until she realized it had happened to many others as well: “I kept this story bottled up for a very long time because I was ashamed and afraid to come forward. I just wanted justice for myself and for others who were treated this way. My only hope is that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

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In 2005, Federal Judge David Lawson of the Eastern District of Michigan ruled such treatment unconstitutional but did not rule on the question of damages. A jury trial was then held to determine damages, and the decision came March 12.

Those four plaintiffs were not the only ones treated this way, nor were they the only ones who will receive a settlement from the Saginaw County Jail. Thirty-seven other victims have already settled with the county, and Judge Lawson has scheduled settlement conferences in late April for 35 more detainees who were victims of this unconstitutional behavior. The original federal lawsuit in 2005 had 22 plaintiffs and was filed as Rose, et al v Saginaw County. The ultimate cost to the county may well end up being in the millions of dollars.

While the county claimed that only an inmate who “disrupts the security of the jail” or assaults the staff was placed in administrative segregation, the incident reports cited in Judge Lawson’s 2005 ruling on the case show otherwise.

In one case, a female inmate was stripped and place in the segregation cell merely for cursing at jail employees. Another female inmate underwent this treatment because she was pounding on the door of her cell after she was locked up. In a third case, a female inmate was subjected to this treatment for cursing at a jail employee and refusing to “sit up on the couch.” In the case of Letterman, the incident report merely says she was “uncooperative and argumentative” during the booking process. There were also several male inmates treated in the same manner.

In his ruling, Judge Lawson noted that the constitutional requirement of due process places a particular burden on government agents when dealing with detainees who have not yet been convicted of a crime. He also cited several court precedents that place a high value on the detainee having a reasonable expectation of at least some minimal respect for their privacy, especially in the presence of members of the opposite gender. He ultimately concluded that while isolation may have been reasonable in these cases, requiring them to be naked in front of others was not:

Although the record demonstrates that isolating many of these plaintiffs was justified as a legitimate security measure because of their outrageous conduct, the Court is persuaded that society recognizes as legitimate an inmate’s subjective expectation that he or she may not be required to forfeit all clothing and covering, even for a brief time, when he or she has been detained for relatively minor violations, there is no individualized suspicion of drug, weapon, contraband possession, and there is no indication that he or she is suicidal.

Kary Moss, director of the ACLU of Michigan, called the verdict an important victory for the rights of all Americans. “We applaud the jury for standing up for basic human rights in our prison system,” she said. “Hopefully, this decision will put an end to such practices wherever they may occur.”