Federal Judge Holds Georgia Department of Corrections Officials in Contempt
The settlement agreement in Daughtry v. Emmons requires the GDC to alleviate the harmful effects of extreme isolation in the State’s most restrictive prison.
(Macon, GA) A federal court has issued an order holding Georgia prison officials in contempt for their persistent violations of a settlement agreement and court order designed to protect men in the Georgia Department of Corrections’ (GDC) Special Management Unit (SMU).
The settlement agreement in Daughtry v. Emmons requires the GDC to alleviate the harmful effects of extreme isolation in the State’s most restrictive prison. Indeed, Dr. Craig Haney, one of the country’s leading experts on solitary confinement, said the SMU “is one of the harshest and most draconian facilities [he had] seen in operation anywhere in the country,” and that the conditions created a “significant risk of very serious psychological harm,” particularly for the high number of people with mental illness imprisoned there.
To address this “significant risk,” in 2019, GDC officials entered into a settlement agreement to ameliorate the conditions. The settlement agreement requires that men in the SMU receive, among other things, a minimum amount of out-of-cell time, access to programming and mental health evaluations, book access, and food servings that were consistent in quantity and quality with those provided to the general population.
But the GDC has largely sidestepped its obligations under the settlement agreement and a subsequent federal injunction. And after two rounds of contempt litigation, an extension of the settlement agreement in 2022, and an evidentiary hearing in late 2023 where the GDC’s repeated violations of the settlement agreement were laid bare, the federal court has ordered (1) the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the GDC’s compliance with the settlement agreement, (2) that the GDC pay $2,500 in daily fines (or $75,000 every 30 days for six months), (3) another extension of the settlement agreement, and (4) attorney’s fees to cover the costs of enforcing the settlement.
In its 100-page order, the court documented repeated violations of the settlement agreement and promises made but rarely kept. For example:
- GDC officials put people in “strip[ped] cells” upon their arrival in the SMU, taking their clothing and leaving them naked or near naked for hours or days at a time. The cells sometimes had broken toilets and no running water. The men placed in these cells were forced to endure these “horrific conditions” without any out-of-cell time, programming, mental health care, or other protections required by the settlement agreement.
- Prison officials denied people out-of-cell time and programming for arbitrary or impermissible reasons.
- The Court found GDC’s own compliance documents “not only insufficient but also unreliable.”
- Prison officials improperly confined people in the SMU beyond the maximum time allowed by the settlement agreement without a meaningful opportunity to leave.
Explaining his ruling, Chief Judge Marc T. Treadwell wrote:
As the end of the injunction’s term neared, it became clear to the Court that the defendants, in effect, were running a four-corner offense and had no desire or intention to comply with the Court’s injunction; they would stall until the injunction expired. The Court can no longer tolerate the defendants’ misconduct and [] holds the defendants in contempt.
“The Constitution’s protections do not stop at the prison walls, a basic truth that should not be lost on any government official,” said Atteeyah Hollie, Deputy Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. “But what we’ve seen at the SMU is a wholesale disregard for the law, the Court’s order, and the rights of fellow Georgians who are imprisoned there. This level of noncompliance would be astounding in any other area of state government, but at the SMU, it was the norm, and people suffered.”
“We are hopeful that the appointment of an independent monitor, an extension of the settlement, and daily fines will bring the change that has eluded people in the SMU for far too long.”
“The District Court’s order creates a new level of accountability and transparency for what happens to the men in the SMU,” said Stephanie Bedard of Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, LLP. “There is reason to be hopeful that conditions will improve. We will continue to work with the Southern Center for Human Rights to enforce the rights of our clients in the SMU.”
The men in the SMU are represented by the Southern Center for Human Rights and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP.
Press Contact: Atteeyah Hollie, [email protected], 404-386-1310 (c), 404-688-1202 (o)