Allegheny County Settles Suit, Lifts Media Gag Policy for Pittsburgh Jail Employees
by Matt Clarke
On April 17, 2024, Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County settled a lawsuit brought by a Pittsburgh journalist challenging policies and practices that prevented employees of the county’s Bureau of Corrections (BOC) from speaking about matters of public concern at the county jail without first receiving permission from the warden. Under the settlement, the county revised the policies, acknowledging that “its employees and contractors have constitutional rights to speak on matters of public concern when acting as private citizens.”
As Director of the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, Brittany Hailer “reported extensively on problems at the Allegheny County Jail [ACJ],” her suit noted. In 2023, with pro bono assistance from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and the Yale School of Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, Hailer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming that the BOC policies violated the First Amendment. The lawsuit alleged that the policies “effectively silenced jail employees, hampering investigative reporting about issues at the Allegheny County Jail,” which had just recorded 13 deaths in two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, May 2022, p.20.]
Once the suit was filed, “the parties worked collaboratively to develop new policies,” according to the settlement agreement they reached. Revisions were made to Policy 605: Code of Ethics/Conduct Required of All ACJ Employees; Policy 624: Use of Social Media by Employees; Policy 625: Access to News Media; and Policy 200: Incident Reporting Procedures. The county also paid litigation costs of $1,640 to Yale and $402 to RCFP.
“Meaningful accountability and oversight depend upon the public’s ability to access information about what is happening inside of correctional facilities,” said Pennsylvania Local Legal Initiative attorney Paula Knudsen Burke, who helped RCFP litigate the case.
Jail workers have been leaking information to the media, Hailer said, “to make the jail a better place and to shine a light on the conditions of confinement, despite the fact that they might lose their jobs.” Now those same workers “can talk to the press with protection, which is a benefit to not just the media, but to readers and concerned citizens in Allegheny County.” Hailer, who now writes for The Marshall Project, added that she hoped for “a new era of transparency” at ACJ. See: Hailer v. Allegheny Cty., USDC (W.D. Pa.), Case No. 2:23-cv-01480.