Three former inmates at the D.C. jail filed a class-action lawsuit yesterday alleging that for years the Corrections Department has shown a deliberate indifference toward the rights of detainees that has resulted in a pattern of keeping individuals past their court- ordered release dates.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, is believed to be the first time that a class of plaintiffs has sued the city on the grounds that inmates are being wrongfully held because of chronic problems in handling records at the Corrections Department.

The District already faces a $440 million lawsuit filed on behalf of Joseph S. Heard, a deaf, mute and mentally ill man who was wrongfully kept at the jail for nearly two years after a misdemeanor trespassing charge against him was dismissed. Heard was freed last August when corrections officials discovered that files authorizing his release never arrived -- and that no one at the jail had checked his files.

The class-action suit -- in which plaintiffs seek a jury trial, unspecified monetary damages and an independent monitor to reform the jail's records office -- alleges that as many as one in 10 inmates in the District's corrections system at any given time is held beyond release dates. Yesterday, 1,874 inmates were incarcerated at the jail and 724 at the adjacent Correctional Treatment Facility.

The suit could complicate efforts by Corrections Director Odie Washington to get plaintiffs in another lawsuit to agree to a permanent lifting of a court-mandated cap for the jail of 1,674 inmates.

William Claiborne, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, said that records problems at the jail have been so extensive that the pool of plaintiffs could easily reach into the hundreds should a federal court judge certify the case as a class action.

"The District government has known about this problem for many years and has not done anything effective to make sure that prisoners get released in a timely fashion," said Lynn Cunningham, a co-counsel in the suit.

Corrections spokesman Darryl J. Madden declined to comment on the suit, Bynum v. the District of Columbia, and referred questions to the corporation counsel's office. A spokesman for that office, Peter Lavallee, said he could not comment on pending litigation.

Cunningham said that the cases the legal team has learned of so far involve inmates kept in jail from 24 hours to several months longer than they should have been. He said that the worst case the team has come across is that of Heard. Even though Heard has filed his own suit, he would become a member of the class, but he could opt out if he chooses, the lawyers said.

Like Heard, the three plaintiffs in the class-action suit -- Marcus Bynum, Lazaro Ugarte and Kim Nabinette -- found themselves behind bars despite release orders from judges.

According to the suit, Bynum was arrested May 5, 2000, on an unlawful entry charge. On Aug. 16, 2000, a judge sentenced him to time served and ordered his release. But Bynum was not freed for more than a month.

On Feb. 13, Ugarte was jailed for violating a court order and given a release date of March 16. But he was not allowed to go home until May 14.

As for Nabinette, the suit says she was arrested on a heroin distribution charge on May 9. The following day, the case was dropped, and the judge ordered her immediate release. Instead, she was transported to the jail and held until the evening of May 14.

A key processing problem, the suit contends, is that D.C. Superior Court, federal court and the D.C. jail all use different computer systems. Release and commitment information entered into the computer systems used by the courts does not automatically appear in the computer networks used by the Corrections Department. Consequently, release and commitment orders generated by judges have to be hand-carried to the jail records office by U.S. marshals who transport inmates by bus -- creating opportunity for error.

The suit also maintains that record-keeping and file management at the records office is "chaotic and slovenly." The document cites a 2000 court-ordered report that said the records office is staffed with underperforming employees who have been "dumped" there.

Furthermore, the suit says, "several attorneys calling the [office] to obtain release for their clients . . . have met with records office employees who do nothing about securing the release of an overdetained inmate even after being told the inmate is overdetained."

Marie-Ann Sennett, executive director of the D.C. Prisoners Legal Services Project Inc., said that getting the Corrections Department to respond to inmate grievances would ease the problem.

"If they replied to grievances within the 15 days that their directive requires them to," Sennett said, "the agency may have been able to catch some of these erroneous detentions that the records office has been missing." Sennett added that the average reply time has been as high as 35 days but that the figure has been falling and is now 20 to 25 days.

Washington Post

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2002