NYCLU Victory Secures Public’s Right to Know if Erie County has Cleaned Up its Jails

““This is a victory for open government and an important step in securing healthy and humane conditions at the Erie County Holding Center, and throughout the county’s correctional system,” said John A. Curr III, director of the NYCLU’s Western Regional Office.

The decision secures the public’s right to review compliance reports filed every six months in federal court pursuant to a consent decree designed to address the conditions in the County’s jails. The reports are filed by physicians hired to monitor the county’s compliance with reforms to improve conditions at the facilities. The reforms grew out of a 2009 lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

A two-year investigation by the Justice Department found evidence of staff-inmate violence and sexual misconduct between staff and inmates, along with an inadequate monitoring system to prevent suicide at the facilities. Since 2003, nine inmates have committed suicide at both sites, and at least 15 additional inmates have attempted it.

“Erie County wishes to keep the reports which measure its progress, or regress, under seal and, therefore, out of public view. Yet every aspect of this litigation is public… Erie County seeks, nonetheless, to keep the compliance reports under the darkness of a seal. But the First Amendment does not countenance Erie County’s position. Neither experience nor logic supports sealing the documents, and the District Court erred in concluding otherwise,” the Second Circuit’s decision states.

Though Erie County and Justice Department officials originally agreed to keep the reports secret, the NYCLU intervened, arguing that the public’s right to access the reports under the First Amendment overrode their agreement.

“We commend the court’s decision to let the sun shine on this longstanding controversy,” said NYCLU Senior Staff Attorney Alexis Karteron, lead counsel on the case. “If the conditions in the jails have improved as they should have, the county has nothing to hide.”