Federal judge blasts expert for not evaluating inmate jail brutality claims, but OKs case for trial
Already operating under a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice, Chicago’s Cook County Jail may not be a pleasant place to be incarcerated.
But a claimed “crisis of violence” has not been shown that would require further intervention in efforts being made by Sheriff Tom Dart to improve the situation, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Rejecting a request for a preliminary injunction by Northwestern University’s MacArthur Justice Center, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall blasted an expert for not looking more closely at inmate claims of violence on which a civil rights lawsuit filed last year was based, reports the Chicago Tribune (reg. req.).
“An expert is expected to review evidence objectively and to apply his methodology to scrutinize and conclude based on his expertise,” Kendall said in her written opinion. But the expert in the Northwestern case “completely abdicated his role as an objective and critical analyst when he accepted without scrutiny the conclusions given to him by plaintiffs’ lawyers.”
However, the judge said enough evidence had been presented to allow the case to proceed to trial.
Attorney David Shapiro has been handling the case for the MacArthur Justice Center. He told the newspaper in a written statement that there will be more evidence presented at trial, at which time the center expects to show an “inexcusable pattern of brutality.”
