NEW ORLEANS — A last-ditch effort by Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson to reverse a federal court order to build a new jail complex to house mentally ill inmates was met with stiff resistance in court Wednesday.
Not only did U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael North reinforce the order, but attorneys for the inmates and the Department of Justice also reiterated their support, despite a letter from Hutson calling the planned mental health wing – known as Phase III – “outdated” and “inhumane.”
The building is a key element of a decade-long federal consent decree designed to improve the safety, health and medical care for inmates at the long-troubled city jail. While the city and Hutson have balked at the steep increase in the price tag for the new building – from the original estimate of $40 million to a new projection of $115 million – the attorney for the inmates said the city must find a way.
“My clients have been denied proper medical and health care for years,” said Emily Washington, attorney for the organization representing the inmates, the MacArthur Justice Center.
Washington said Hutson’s long list of legal and practical objections to Phase III are “well-trodden and well-rejected.”
North agreed, pointing out that the legal fight over Phase III has been litigated for years and the sheriff’s and city’s objections “already rejected by multiple courts.”
But if Hutson’s efforts to find an alternative to Phase III could be considered a failed attempt at a Hail Mary, the Sheriff’s Office has now invoked the equivalent of one last instant replay review.
In a legal motion filed by the Sheriff’s Office legal team shortly after she submitted her letter, Hutson is requesting the “termination of all orders regarding the construction of the Phase III jail.”
In the three-page motion, Hutson argues that she “was not party to the agreement” on the new mental health wing.
“Officials in prison reform litigation, who are charged with actually implementing the reforms, should not be bound by their predecessor’s prior decisions in the litigation,” the motion states.
While North agreed to entertain the motion, he issued a fast-track schedule to resolve the matter, mindful of the planned ground-breaking date for construction of the new wing coming up in mid-July.
North said the new facility is more urgent than ever, pointing out two recent inmate deaths at the jail from drug overdoses.
“Time for discussions is long over,” North said from the bench. “People are literally dying in the jail.”
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