Ex-inmates win $1.2M settlement
By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer
A federal magistrate yesterday approved a $1.2 million settlement to be paid by the state to possibly hundreds of prisoners held behind bars when they should have been released.
Former inmates have until July 15 to file claims. Send to Claims Administrator, P.O. Box 3373, Honolulu HI 96801.
U.S. Magistrate Leslie Kobayashi called the settlement "fair, reasonable and adequate." She said it avoids a lengthy and expensive trial.
CLAIMS
Lawyers for the former inmates said they could expect to receive checks — about $5,000 each for a vast majority of them — by the end of summer.
A class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2001 by volunteer American Civil Liberties Union lawyers Mark Davis and Susan Dorsey on behalf of inmates held in state correctional facilities from December 1999 to December 2002 after they were supposed to be released.
In the past, some defendants acquitted of all charges in the courtroom were returned to prison and sometimes were held as the paperwork was processed.
Of the $1.2 million, $400,000 will be paid to the ACLU and lawyers for legal fees and costs and up to $100,000 will be paid to claims administrator Elbridge Smith, who will evaluate the claims. That leaves at least $700,000 for the former inmates.
If their claims are less than that amount, the University of Hawai'i law school will get the rest of the money, which the lawyers estimated will be at least $50,000.
Deputy Attorney General Kendall Moser said the state reviewed the release of about 20,000 to 22,000 prisoners during the three-year period and estimated the number of claimants to be as high as 200. But Davis said his estimate is that as many as 600 can file claims. The payments will be $1,000 for each day the prisoner was held beyond the release date and $3,000 if they were strip-searched upon returning to the facilities.
Dorsey said although many claimants will be getting about $5,000, she understood that two claimants were held for about 90 days, which would mean each would be getting $90,000.
If the claims exceed the money available, the amounts to the clients will be reduced on a prorata basis, Davis said.
The state also agreed to make improvements to ensure that inmates are released on time. "We hope with the settlement of this lawsuit that everything will be working the way it ought to be and inmates will get released when they should get released," Moser said.
Davis said they were pleased with the settlement, "not only for the money award that's going to be paid out to the (former prisoners), but also for the procedural reforms that have been instituted by this case."
Reach Ken Kobayashi at 525-8030 or kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
