Friday, February 10, 2012

Shawnee County has agreed to pay $75,000 to settle a lawsuit over a jail policy that bans inmates from receiving books and publications in the mail.

County commissioners Ted Ensley, Shelly Buhler and Mary Thomas
unanimously approved the settlement during their meeting Thursday.

The American Civil Liberties Union represented Vermont-based Prison Legal News in a lawsuit filed last year against the Shawnee County Commission and the director of the county's corrections
department. The suit contended that the ban violates the inmates'
constitutional rights to free speech and other civil rights.

With the settlement, the jail now will permit Prison Legal News, renewal notices for the journal, book fliers, order forms/catalogs and "similar types of mail" into the facility. The jail is prohibited from enforcing the previous policy and from making amendments that create more restrictions on publications protected by the settlement.

County counselor Rich Eckert said the $75,000 settlement was a "very good settlement for Shawnee County" compared to similar lawsuits throughout the states. Most other cases settled for between $150,000 and $250,000, Eckert told commissioners. The most recent, he said, was in South Carolina, which settled for $600,000.

"The difference between South Carolina and us is that we immediately recognized that our policy needed to be fixed," Eckert said. "South Carolina fought it vigorously and paid for that."