(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
ATLANTA (CN) — An attorney for a Georgia sheriff asked an 11th Circuit panel Wednesday to overturn an order ending a jail’s policy of holding mentally ill women in solitary confinement up to 24 hours a day in disturbing conditions.
Ashley Palmer of the Fulton County Attorney’s Office told a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-appeals court that the lower court overstepped its authority by requiring Fulton County Sheriff Theodore Jackson and South Fulton Municipal Regional Jail officials to offer mentally disabled prisoners held in solitary confinement at least four hours of out-of-cell time per day.