Illinois Pays $3 Million for Subjecting Prisoners to Degrading Mass Strip Search
by Anthony W. Accurso
After a dozen years of fighting over a mass strip-search conducted during a training exercise in an Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) prison for women, the federal court for the Central District of Illinois approved a settlement on December 28, 2023. The successful conclusion of the prisoners’ class-action affirmed that the Fourth Amendment remains in effect behind bars, though with limited rights—including now the right to be free from pointless and humiliating searches like Plaintiffs endured.
On the morning of March 31, 2011, a DOC “Orange Crush” tactical team wearing its distinctive orange jumpsuits entered Unit 2B at Lincoln Correctional Center (LCC), a medium security facility housing women prisoners. Over 200 of them were herded to the dorm, pat-searched and handcuffed before being marched to the gym. The prisoners were forced to stand shoulder to shoulder in rows, facing the wall while guards called them “bitches” and cadets practiced handcuffing them—for five to seven long hours, causing some elderly prisoners to cry out in pain from being forced to stand so long. None of the prisoners was allowed to sit, get a drink of water or use the toilet. Though female cadets then performed the strip searches in a restroom and the barber shop, male guards and cadets could see the women and made demeaning remarks about them. Worse, menstruating prisoners were ordered to remove feminine products and toss them on the floor and in overflowing garbage cans in full view of others. Women stood barefoot on a dirty floor covered in menstrual blood.
Importantly, there were no specific reports of prisoners suspected of possessing contraband, calling into question the justification for the exercise. But in October 2013, after LCC was converted to a men’s prison and many of its women prisoners were shipped to Logan Correctional Center (LCC), another cadet training exercise was conducted there, nearly identical to the one at LCC, which was organized by many of the same leadership staff.
Plaintiffs sued, and the district court granted class certification. But it dismissed the Class’ Fourth Amendment claims, agreeing with DOC that the Constitution does not protect prisoners during searches. A jury then found for Defendants on the Eighth Amendment claims, as well. Plaintiffs turned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which reversed the lower court’s dismissal of their Fourth Amendment claims, finding a diminished right to bodily privacy that protects against unreasonable searches, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2021, p.52.] Those claims then returned to the district court, where a jury found for Plaintiffs in May 2022, and the district court denied Defendants’ motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law or a new trial on October 25, 2022. See: Phillips v. Hulett, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 194071 (C.D. Ill.).
The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, which included a $1.4 million fund to be distributed among Class members. After $119,000 in incentive awards to 12 named prisoners, the fund was anticipated to pay $7,535 to each of the 85% of Class Members expected to file claims. Another $1.6 million of the settlement went to pay $1.475 million in fees and $225,000 in costs to Class counsel, including lead attorneys Ruth Brown and Russell Ainsworth of the Prisoner Rights Project of Loevy & Loevy in Chicago. DOC further promised to revise policies regarding privacy during strip searches and strip searches of menstruating prisoners, as well as agreeing not to conduct any strip searches solely for training purposes. See: Phillips v. Hulett, USDC (C.D. Ill.), Case No. 3:12-cv-03087.
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