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| Shackled Inmates to be Paid By Cook County |
| By Chicago Tribune |
| Published: 04/14/2003 |
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The Cook County sheriff's office has agreed to pay 500 former jail inmates $163,900 to settle a lawsuit alleging the inmates were unlawfully shackled hand and foot around the clock while hospitalized. Michael Jacobs, an assistant Cook County state's attorney who handled the claims made by former inmates, reported that all claims had been reviewed and that checks for the last group of claimants had been approved. The lawsuit was settled last year in an agreement that also called for payment of $445,000 in attorneys' fees and costs to Thomas and Kevin Peters, the lawyers who filed the class-action lawsuit in 1999 challenging the shackling policy of the sheriff's office. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three inmates, including Gregory May, who has AIDS and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks at Cook County Hospital. He was shackled hand and foot the entire time, keeping him from going to court, using the telephone, writing and reading. Inmates who are taken to hospitals from the Cook County Jail are transported and guarded by officers assigned to the external operations unit of the sheriff's office. At the time of the lawsuit, Richard Remus was chief of the unit and testified during a deposition about the shackling policy. Remus resigned from the sheriff's office earlier this year after he was suspended 29 days without pay for alleged misconduct during a February 1999 jail shakedown. Dozens of inmates had said they were beaten by members of the sheriff's Special Operations Response Team. As part of the settlement, Sheriff Michael Sheahan agreed to modify policies relating to the shackling of hospital patients to allow for them to be unshackled at meal times for one hour and to allow them to use the bathroom if they are ambulatory and able to walk around their room. Other changes include allowing low security risk inmates to make a five-minute phone call daily to their attorney or a family member. High security risk inmates are allowed such calls once every two days. |
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