HOWELL (AP) - Livingston County has agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a lawsuit over mail sent to jail inmates by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The settlement was filed last Friday in Detroit federal court, more than a year after an appeals court ruled against Livingston County.
The ACLU's Michigan branch filed a lawsuit after it got no response to two dozen letters sent to inmates. At the time, jail administrator Tom Cremonte said staff doesn't deliver legal mail to inmates unless it's from a lawyer who is representing an inmate.
Cremonte said the jail gets suspicious about mass mailings. But the appeals court said the jail's "arbitrary policies" violated the First Amendment.
The county now has agreed to deliver mail to inmates regardless of whether there's an attorney-client relationship.
Published: Thu, Sep 29, 2016
