ACLU Sues Montgomery County Over Incarceration Policy

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — A 41-year-old Black woman, currently incarcerated and suffering from end-stage kidney disease, is one of a handful of plaintiffs suing over Montgomery County over its incarceration of parole violators. The groups argues individuals are kept behind bars for an unfair amount of time before their hearings are held.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania filed a class action lawsuit on Wednesday in Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Court challenging what it says is the unconstitutional incarceration of people facing probation and parole revocation proceedings.

"The disregard for the constitutional promise of due process by Montgomery County is appalling," Reggie Shuford, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. "When the county simply locks up individuals accused of violating probation or parole without offering a prompt hearing, it not only denies them their liberty, it puts their livelihood, their families, and their health in jeopardy. That is unacceptable."

One of the named plaintiffs is Ebony El, A Black woman on dialysis who is in the end stages of renal failure. The lawsuit says that El was imprisoned last month in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility over a three-year-old marijuana possession and first-time DUI charge out of Philadelphia.

The suits says her continued incarceration without a prompt hearing caused El to miss her chance at receiving a life-saving kidney transplant procedure.

Another plaintiff, 30-year-old Song Joo Lee, missed the birth of his first child because Montgomery County detained him this August over a 2019 DUI charge from Tennessee.

"While detained he cannot support his family and still has not met his daughter," the lawsuit states.

The third named plaintiff, Charles Gamber, 45 has been detained in Montgomery County jail since August because he allegedly failed to complete a voluntary psychiatric program, did not take his medication as prescribed, and could not afford to pay $100 in fines.

"These are three of the named plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit seeking to represent hundreds of people who are subjected to unnecessary and prolonged detention by Montgomery County’s unconstitutional parole and probation-revocation system," the lawsuit states.

The ACLU of Pennsylvania, citing court records, says that from January 2019 through May 2021, virtually every person facing revocation proceedings — at least 89 percent — were incarcerated. Of individuals detained while awaiting a hearing, 92 percent never received the constitutionally mandated initial hearing to assess whether there was probable cause regarding the alleged probation or parole violation, the group stated.

The ACLU also says that Montgomery County kept people jailed for an average of 70 days before providing any court hearing whatsoever. The group says that the county doesn't provide an opportunity to assess whether detention is warranted.

"Montgomery County perfectly represents the problem with America's systems of parole and probation," Allison Frankel, a fellow with Equal Justice Works, said in a statement. "Nationally, probation and parole are promoted as alternatives to incarceration, but in reality, they drive high numbers of people right back to jail or prison, while in many cases failing to help them get the services and resources necessary."

The ACLU also contends that Montgomery County's actions disproportionately affects Black and brown people.

The lawsuit says that Montgomery County's court system "systematically fails to provide people it detains for alleged violations with a prompt judicial hearing, which the U.S. Supreme Court mandated nearly fifty years ago in Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778 (1973), and Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471 (1972)."

The lawsuit seeks to have Montgomery County hold prompt revocation hearings to assess probable cause and determine whether detention is necessary and appropriate.

The defendants named in the civil action include the county's president judge, as well as the Clerk of Courts, the chief probation and parole officer, and the court administrator.

A full copy of the 63-page lawsuit can be found here.