Above Photo: Judges in Prince George’s County are punting decisions about pretrial release to county officials in the department of corrections, which often denies release without providing a rationale, a legal complaint alleges. Joe Gratz / Flickr.
Prince George’s County, Maryland – Nine people who were recently held in the Prince George’s County jail say they were detained illegally, even after courts ordered or allowed their release. They’ve filed a lawsuit that suggests as many as a third of people in the county jail may be in custody illegally.
The lawsuit, which lawyers are seeking to certify as a class action, was filed in federal district court in Maryland this week. It alleges that county judges unlawfully deferred to county officials in final decisions about the release of people before trial, shrouding the decision making process in bureaucratic mystery and leading to lengthy delays in giving people who have not been found guilty of a crime their freedom.
“Every night, hundreds of people are jailed awaiting trial in Prince George’s County, Maryland, despite the absence of any legally sufficient order that they be detained,” the complaint reads. “These unlawfully jailed people comprise approximately one-third of the entire population of the Prince George’s County Jail.”
The case is being brought by attorneys with the Georgetown Law Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Civil Rights Corps, and the law firm WilmerHale.
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, people who have been charged with crimes but whose cases have not yet gone to trial — in other words, who are still presumed innocent — are broadly entitled to liberty before their cases are adjudicated. The exceptions to this rule are supposed to be narrow, including if a judicial official deems the person a flight risk or a danger to the community — a determination that is supposed to be made in a hearing that examines the facts and different options for release.
Maryland law additionally requires that pretrial detention be the “least onerous condition or combination of conditions” to ensure public safety.
But the lawsuit argues that those standards are being flouted in Prince George’s County. It says circuit court and district court judges are determining that many people can be safely released while their case moves forward — but then punting the final determination to county officials in the pretrial division of the department of corrections, which often reverses them without providing a rationale or an opportunity for the jailed person or their attorney to weigh in.
Even if corrections officials do comply with the judge’s initial decision to release someone, delays plague the process: it can take “weeks or months,” according to the suit, for the agency to act. For a snapshot of cases granted pretrial authorization by judges between January and May 2022, only about half of the detainees had been released by mid-July.
Between December 2018 and February 2021, more than 1,200 people received pretrial release authorization. One-fifth were never released. The rest spent days, weeks, or months held in jail, and some only received their liberty after petitioning for additional hearings.
The nine plaintiffs — five of whom are still being held in the jail — illustrate the severe impact this pretrial system can have. Five are parents who were separated from young children. Others missed funerals or were prevented from spending time with ailing loved ones. Several were confined in their jail cells for 23 hours a day. Two lost their homes, and one is still unhoused. The single juvenile plaintiff in the case, who is 16 years old and still incarcerated, will “likely be held back in school,” after being gone for so long, the complaint says.
Poor conditions at the Prince George’s County jail have been well-documented. At the onset of the pandemic, people detained there sued the county over unsanitary conditions, including cell walls “covered in feces, mucus, and blood,” lack of mental health care, a policy preventing mask-wearing, and the failure of jail officials to provide incarcerated people with soap to wash their hands.
The current plaintiffs are seeking an injunction against the county’s pretrial policies that have prolonged their detention, as well as financial compensation.
“We have been made aware of the allegations and are reviewing them, but we have not yet been served with a lawsuit,” a spokesperson for the corrections department told WAMU/DCist on Thursday morning.
The lawsuit includes a thorough explanation of the court’s pretrial process, starting with an initial hearing where a judicial commissioner can release the person, set a bond amount, or hold them, and then moving into a second hearing, where judges review the bond decision and can order or create an option for pretrial release. But that “pretrial release” designation pushes the final decision to corrections officials, instead of triggering immediate action.
“When judges announce at bail review hearings that they are ‘authorizing pretrial release,’ arrested people and their families regularly cheer,” the complaint says. “They then become devastated once they learn from defense counsel that an authorization of pretrial release does not, in fact, result in pretrial release—at least not any time soon.”
The inner workings of the courts in Prince George’s County have been extensively documented by volunteers with Courtwatch PG, a community organization founded to hold the legal system accountable. Lawyers worked closely with the volunteers and with leaders from Life After Release, an advocacy group led by formerly incarcerated women, to bring the suit, according to The Washington Post.
The impact of the pretrial practices outlined in the lawsuit fall disproportionately on Black people, who make up about 80% of the jail population in Prince George’s County, according to the complaint.
“This gross misconduct has been ongoing for decades, and thousands of mostly Black and Brown people have paid an immeasurable price. We hope this lawsuit will be a much-needed jolt to the system,” said Civil Rights Corps lawyer Ellora Israni in a statement.