A Roseville man who was held in the Wayne County Jail for six days after a judge ordered his release is now suing the county and the sheriff.
Liam West-Campeau, 22, filed a federal class action lawsuit after he was arrested on Oct. 5 for violating his probation. According to the complaint, Westcampeau was arraigned on Oct. 8 and ordered released on $2,000 personal recognizance bail. That means if you don’t show up to court wearing a GPS tether, you won’t have to post bail. .
But Westcampeau was not released for nearly another week until Oct. 14, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
“I know I’m not the only one who feels like I shouldn’t have been there that long,” Westcampeau said Monday. “I shouldn’t stay there any longer than I have to. It happens to everyone there and they can’t do anything about it.”
West Campeau’s attorney, Megan Bonnani, said she knows it’s a long-standing practice for people with GPS tethers to take several days to be released.
“I think it’s a combination of understaffing, mismanagement and administrative confusion,” Bonanni told The Detroit News on Monday. “(West-Campeau) bravely came forward because he wants change. He doesn’t want anyone to go through what he went through. That’s his motivation, and I as a lawyer and an advocate. They have to change this. It’s inhumane and it’s unconstitutional.”
Normally, the process of releasing an inmate and disposing of restraints should take no more than two to four hours, according to the complaint.
Ed Foxworth, a spokesperson for Wayne County Sheriff Rafael Washington’s office, and Doda Rulgujuraj, a Wayne County spokeswoman, declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying the sheriff’s office and county have not yet been served with the lawsuit. Said it has not been done.
The case is the latest challenge for Wayne County’s new Criminal Justice Center, which houses the county’s circuit court, jail and Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility. It opened in early September, but has been plagued by problems since opening. The path to opening the complex took 13 years and at least $500 million, and the first attempt at the project was abandoned.
Since mid-September, two inmates have died by suicide, lawyers have waited hours to meet with their clients in prison, and inmates have refused to go to court in protest against their living conditions. He said that the conflict was still ongoing. There are not enough representatives to run the prison smoothly.
While in prison, Mr. West Campeau’s mother tried to find him, but prison employees were unable to locate him because the computers and records systems were offline and there was no record of his whereabouts within the prison. He is said to have told her that he could not identify her. Jail, according to the complaint.
“In the weeks since the new CJC opened, the facility has been plagued by operational and administrative disruptions, resulting in multiple inmate deaths, protests, staffing shortages, and several days of (sic) Lockdowns, crowded cells, disgruntled lawmakers who resigned, offline computer systems, and, the lawsuit says, infighting and flooding.
The complaint names Robert Dunlap of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office (Washington, Wayne County) and five Wayne County employees, but does not specify how much money Westcampeau is seeking.
On October 12, West Campeau and seven other inmates were placed in a “tether” pod. According to the complaint, his mother tried to find and contact him, but the computer and records systems were offline and there was no record of his location in the prison, so the prison had no way of finding him or identifying him. It was not possible to identify the person.
“This is intentional. They know it. This is not a secret. Everyone knows this is happening and they’re not doing anything to correct it.” Bonanni said on Monday. “Who is suffering? Vulnerable prison residents and their families who search for them for days. Liam’s mother was at a loss, unable to find her son.”
Westcampeau said he did not have access to a phone while in prison, and neither did most of the people around him. He said he had no outside communication for eight days and his mother was scared because she didn’t know where he was.
Asked last month about reports of inmates not having access to their phones, Foxworth said inmates had access “as usual.”
According to the newspaper, Westcampau’s mother paid a private tethering company to provide him with a tether so he could be released early, but prison officials refused to allow private tethering companies to work inside the prison. He is said to have said that he was not there and could not find him. Lawsuit.
Chief Judge William Maconico of Detroit’s 36th District Court said in May that Tether’s speed is improving. At the peak of COVID-19, when prisons were releasing far more people on tethers than before, people were waiting five to seven days to get their tethers. Maconico said in May that the period of detention in prison would be reduced to three days.
The new prison’s computer system is chronically offline, causing problems in tracking, locating and identifying inmates registered at the prison, according to the complaint.
This class action lawsuit seeks to represent people who have been detained in the jail from October 14, 2021 to the present, and who have been detained for more than five days after the reason for their detention ended.
kberg@detroitnews.com
