The ACLU of Illinois has agreed to dismiss its federal lawsuit challenging conditions at the Mary Davis Home, ending a years-long legal battle over the treatment of detained youth.
The move comes two months after the juvenile detention center in Galesburg closed — and two years since the ACLU of Illinois filed the lawsuit alleging youth were routinely subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and denied adequate mental health care.
“We had wanted to ensure that the facility would not be reopened or opened in some other form as a detention center,” Kevin Fee, legal director of the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU of Illinois, told TSPR. “When we were satisfied that there was no chance that it was going to reopen, there was really nothing left to litigate.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the defendants filed a stipulation Thursday dismissing the lawsuit without prejudice, which would allow the ACLU of Illinois to refile the case if the facility reopened. It also requires the defendants to retain records related to the case for 18 months, though Fee said he does not expect the litigation to resume.
The lawsuit was filed in 2024 on behalf of youth formerly detained at the facility. It alleged conditions there violated the constitutional rights of those detained.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit were the Mary Davis Home administrator, the director of court services and chief judge of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, and Knox County.
The filing came after the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice updated its standards for county juvenile detention centers for the first time in decades, and after audits of the Mary Davis Home raised concerns.
Fee said the audits and ACLU's investigation pointed to a “culture of solitary confinement” at the facility.
“There were widespread reports of youth being detained for 23 hours a day as a form of punishment in small, brightly lit cells,” Fee said. “In addition, there was inadequate mental health care, which is especially problematic in a facility that’s causing mental health harm to youth by confining them in such small spaces for such long periods of time.”
Before its dismissal, the lawsuit led to court-ordered changes at the facility and was certified as a class action, allowing it to proceed on behalf of all youth detained at the Mary Davis Home. The defendants denied violating the rights of youth.
Fee said his clients are pleased with the outcome.
“The closure of the facility was obviously not the relief we sought in the lawsuit,” Fee said. “But we are grateful that youth will no longer have to face the unconstitutional conditions that they were subjected to at Mary Davis Home any longer.”
The Mary Davis Home was one of a couple dozen county juvenile detention centers in Illinois. The facilities are overseen by judicial circuits, audited by IDJJ, and affiliated with county governments, which own the buildings.
It is also the second county juvenile detention center to close following updated state standards and litigation from the ACLU of Illinois. The Franklin County juvenile detention center in southern Illinois closed in 2023.
In both counties, once the chief judges ordered the facilities to close, the ACLU of Illinois agreed to dismiss the cases.
“The most important outcome is that we stop the cruel and harmful practice of juvenile solitary confinement,” Fee said. “There’s widespread clinical consensus that solitary confinement has profound mental health impact on all people, but particularly youth whose brains are still developing.”
Fee said the ACLU of Illinois has seen improvements at other county juvenile detention centers in the state and believes administrators understand they could face legal action if they fail to meet constitutional standards.
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