ACLU Hits Snag On Mentally Ill Class Suit
A federal appeals court dealt a setback Friday to the American Civil Liberties Union in its effort to force broad reforms to how El Paso County treats mentally ill jail inmates.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld a lower court's ruling that denied the ACLU's motion to have mentally ill inmates treated as a class.
Class action status would have allowed the ACLU to argue for sweeping changes, such as requiring the county to "provide safe and appropriate housing for prisoners with serious mental health needs." Without that status, the organization's National Prison Project can proceed in court only with individual inmate complaints.
County officials have argued there's no need for additional protections for mentally ill inmates.
"At the time the suit was brought, as is the situation now, the mental health services available to inmates in the El Paso County jail was among the best available in the state of Colorado," Gordon Vaughan, an attorney for the county, said in a prepared statement.
Colorado Springs Gazette
2 comments:
What qualification does Vaughan have to make his statement?? I thought he was an attorney or is he a physcitrist? Also a fact that the Colorado courts ignore the constitutional rights of people being incarcerated. The loss of Liberty alone creates mental health issues among prisoners according to medical studys.djw
Yeah, that is a bad blow, we all know thestate has no funds to do what they need to and they treat inmates far worse that deseved thus just creating a bigger problem.
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