By Kate Brumback
Associated Press
ATLANTA — A federal judge on Friday appointed a lead monitor with three decades of experience in corrections to oversee a consent decree meant to address dangerous and unhealthy jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county.
U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May named Kathleen Kenney to the position after the U.S. Department of Justice, Fulton County and county Sheriff Pat Labat jointly sought her appointment as part of the consent decree process.
The Justice Department in July 2023 opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Fulton County, citing violence, filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. That investigation found that jail officials failed to protect detainees from violence, used excessive force and held them in “unconstitutional and illegal conditions.”
The Justice Department and Fulton County officials last month announced that they had entered into the court-enforceable consent decree.
That agreement provided for an independent monitor to be appointed for an initial period of two years to assess the jail’s implementation of its requirements and to provide a public report every six months. The agreement doesn’t include a timeline but says it will end once the county has achieved compliance with its conditions and maintained that compliance for a year.
Kenney has served since April 2022 on a three-person expert panel overseeing the use of force in certain Los Angeles County jail facilities as part of a court-enforced settlement agreement, according to filings with the court supporting her appointment. She previously worked as a consultant with a criminal justice consulting firm and was interim commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Corrections from June 2019 to February 2020. Previously, she spent 25 years with the federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice, including serving 13 years as assistant director/general director for the Bureau of Prisons.
Fulton County Board of Commissioners Chairman Robb Pitts called Kenney’s appointment “an important step forward” in implementing the consent decree and said the committee is committed to working with federal officials and the sheriff’s office to “improve jail conditions as expeditiously as possible.”
“I am pleased to have a Monitor with such impressive credentials, who will bring integrity to the process and will ensure compliance by all parties,” he said in an emailed statement.
Labat also said he was pleased by Kenney’s appointment and said in a statement that lawyers for his agency and the county have been working to develop a plan “aimed at enhancing jail conditions, recruiting and retaining a qualified workforce, and fostering greater accountability through advanced training. We are confident that we are moving in the right direction.”
Fulton County’s main jail in Atlanta has been plagued by problems for years.
The report from the Justice Department investigation into jail conditions detailed a “crisis of violence,” including stabbings, sexual assaults and killings. It also said vulnerable populations, including people who are gay, transgender, young or who have serious mental illness, were particularly at risk from the violence, which causes physical injury and long-lasting trauma.
Jail officers do not receive adequate training and guidance on the use of force and were found to engage in “a pattern or practice of using excessive force” against people in county custody, the report said.
People held in Fulton County custody receive inadequate medical and mental health care in violation of their constitutional rights, leaving them open to risk of injury, serious illness, pain and suffering, mental health decline and death, investigators found.