BEATRICE - Nebraska’s Attorney General says dismissal of an ACLU lawsuit filed on behalf of eleven inmates shows Nebraska’s Corrections System is being operated properly.


Both the State of Nebraska and ACLU attorneys jointly filed to dismiss the lawsuit, after a federal judge denied a request to certify the lawsuit as a class action matter.


Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson says the state’s Department of Corrections withstood an intense evaluation of the system.
"In three years....29 inspections with experts, 42 depositions taken throughout this case, including all the specialists who work for the Department of Corrections in the areas of mental health, medical health, dental health and disability...and the bottom line is, they were not able to show a commonality of conditions that would warrant a class action."


Peterson says there were 385 thousand pages of documents reviewed along with the site visits over the three-year period. He said the Department of Corrections has had many changes underway prior to the filing of the lawsuit.
"When we brought in our own experts we were able to also identify areas within our system that could be improved.. that is significant. It shows that Director (Scott) Frakes and everyone within the Department of Corrections understood that we have to always be evaluating whether or not we are meeting the standard of cares. I will acknowledge this..that within the lawsuit, by bringing in our own experts to do the thorough evaluation of the programs, there were additional improvements made. The ACLU is trying to reference, but for their lawsuit...none of these changes would be made. Over half of the changes were in process, already."


During a news conference Friday, Peterson said the ACLU has chosen not to appeal the federal court judge’s decision on class-action status. He released figures showing the state’s legal costs in the action at about $688,000…..far less than other states such as California and Arizona where defending similar lawsuits against their corrections systems has resulted in millions of dollars in ongoing legal costs.


"There are a lot of people who in the past thought that if the ACLU brought these type of lawsuits, you just had to throw your hands up and concede that they've brought in these big law firms from New York and you couldn't stand up against them. I'm just very proud of the work that was done by Ryan Post and our team of litigators in our civil section. They just weren't intimidated. They said we're willing to have this examination done of the Department of Corrections."


The attorney general said the August 2017 lawsuit was not about allegations of overcrowding, but instead compliance with standards of care and the use of solitary confinement.  There was no settlement payment made by the State of Nebraska.