Baltimore City Mayor Martin O?Malley and the Baltimore City Police Department are not responsible for alleged illegal detentions and strip searches at the city?s Central Booking jail, a judge ruled.
Federal Judge Catherine Blake dismissed O?Malley, the Baltimore City Council and the police department but allowed the allegations against the state of Maryland, which runs Central Booking, to proceed.
In the opinion released Friday, “the judge recognized the situation in Baltimore is different than in most other big cities,” said attorney Joshua Auerbach, of the Baltimore City Department of Law.
“In Baltimore, the state runs Central Booking, and the city and the police department can?t be held liable for injuries inflicted at Central Booking. The judge recognized the city did what it could to try to bring change to Central Booking.”
Eric Jones, of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that claims people arrested and processed at Central Booking are subjected to illegal strip searches and unlawfully lengthy detentions. Jones said he was detained for 36 hours and illegally searched.
In September, the Baltimore Public Defender?s Office dropped a related suit against Central Booking ? one of the nation?s busiest booking centers ? after attorneys said the jail had dramatically changed its practices of holding people for longer than 24 hours.
College Park attorney Sean Day, who represents Jones, said he agreed with Blake?s decision to let the suit proceed against the warden and state defendants, but that Jones had a good case against the city of Baltimore as well.
“We do think we have a viable cause of action against the city defendants because they are entrusting people to the custody of Central Booking,” he said.
Day said everyone should be concerned about how people are treated at the Baltimore jail.
“They?re strip-searching without an individualized reason,” he said. “They?re strip-searching in front of other people. They?re strip-searching men in circumstances which they aren?t strip-searching women.”
The U.S. District Court in Baltimore City is treating the Jones case as “related” to the NAACP?s high-profile suit alleging a pattern of “illegal arrests” by the Baltimore City Police Department.
Even so, attorneys for the both the city and Jones say they do not think Blake?s recent decision will affect the lawsuit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
