CA7: Unreasonable administrative delay in releasing pretrial detainees entitled to release violates 4A

Unreasonable administrative delay in getting people out of jail that are entitled to it violates the Fourth Amendment under Gerstein and County of Riverside. Williams v. Dart, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 23132 (7th Cir. July 23, 2020):

We emphasize that we have neither the institutional competence nor the desire to manage Cook County’s pretrial release program. See Courthouse News Serv. v. Brown, 908 F.3d 1063, 1075 (7th Cir. 2018) (court would not manage Cook County clerk’s office); SKS & Assocs. v. Dart, 619 F.3d 674, 679-80 (7th Cir. 2010) (court would not manage Cook County eviction docket). Indeed, this court’s scrutiny of proffered administrative justifications for detention could not be called unduly zealous. See Chortek v. City of Milwaukee, 356 F.3d 740, 750 (7th Cir. 2004) (Cudahy, J., concurring) (court accepted administrative justification for imposing expressly punitive booking procedure on repeat municipal ordinance violators resulting in detentions up to 14.5 hours).

The Fourth Amendment does not require any particular administrative arrangement for processing bail admissions. It does require, however, that whatever arrangement is adopted not result in seizures that are unreasonable in light of the Fourth Amendment’s history and purposes. “[I]f the Fourth Amendment is to furnish meaningful protection from unfounded interference with liberty,” the Sheriff’s flat refusal to heed the courts’ bail orders alleged in this case, based on nothing more than a policy disagreement and resulting in unjustified detentions of multiple days, simply will not do. Gerstein, 420 U.S. at 114. Plaintiffs’ complaint stated claims for wrongful pretrial detention under the Fourth Amendment.

Injustice Watch: Lawsuit claiming Tom Dart unlawfully detained people after they posted bond can go forward by Steve Garrison (“In February 2018, Taphia Williams was held in Cook County Jail for more than 72 hours after she had posted bond under a policy by Sheriff Tom Dart to conduct a review of anyone in the jail who was ordered released on electronic monitoring. [¶] On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that Williams and eight other Black Chicagoans who were held in jail for up to two weeks after paying bond can pursue a lawsuit against Dart for violating their constitutional rights. [¶] The case now goes back to U.S. District Court Judge Harry D. Leinenweber, who dismissed the suit in May 2019.”)

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