Nebraska’s Attorney General says dismissing the ACLU’s prison overcrowding case is a significant win for the state.
Attorney General Doug Peterson hosted a press conference to set the record straight on the dismissal of the lawsuit Sabata v. Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.
The case was dismissed without stipulations and without a settlement or payment. The Court did not make any determinations finding serious defects with Nebraska’s prison system.
“Since filing the lawsuit in 2017, the ACLU had the opportunity to take its own medical, dental, and mental health experts to 28 prison site inspections to evaluate the care being provided to inmates,” Peterson said in a news release. “They also had the opportunity to question dozens of administrative staff and professional care providers and review over 385,000 pages of prison records.”
“The Attorney General made it clear it is his duty to defend claims against the State, not stand by and allow a national campaign to control state prisons,” according a to a news release from his office.
“The dedicated public servants at the Department of Corrections are to credit for these ongoing improvements, not the ACLU,” said Peterson.
Other states have been subject to control and payment to outside sources as a result of not challenging similar lawsuits.
California has spent more than $200 million on attorney, special master and expert fees in their cases. In just one of the California cases, that is still going today, the State of California pays Plaintiffs’ attorneys $1 million each quarter to “monitor” the case.
The State of Arizona has paid out over $11 million dollars and is still paying attorney fees over the litigation filed in 2012.