IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

BRIAN OTERO, individually and on behalf of ) 

a class of similarly situated individuals, ) 

 ) 

 Plaintiffs, ) 

 ) 

 v. ) Case No. 12-cv-3148 

 ) 

THOMAS J. DART, SHERIFF OF COOK ) 

COUNTY, and COOK COUNTY ILLINOIS, ) 

 ) 

 ) 

 Defendants. ) 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER 

AMY J. ST. EVE, District Court Judge: 

 Plaintiff Brian Otero has sued the Cook County Sheriff for allegedly violating his Fourth 

and Fourteenth Amendment rights by detaining him for an unreasonable amount of time and in 

an unreasonable manner after a jury acquitted him of all charges.1 Plaintiff now moves to certify 

a class pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“Rule”) 23. (R. 41, Mot.) For the following 

reasons, the Court denies Plaintiff’s motion for class certification. The Court denies Plaintiff’s 

motion with prejudice to the extent he seeks to certify a class based on the alleged 

unreasonableness of the delay in releasing acquitted detainees from Cook County Jail, and 

without prejudice to the extent he seeks to certify a class challenging one or more specific 

detention procedures applied to acquitted detainees. 

 

1

 Otero joined Cook County as a party pursuant to Carver v. Sheriff of LaSalle County, 324 F.3d 947, 948 

(7th Cir. 2003). Cook County is an indispensable party to this suit because state law requires the county 

to pay judgments entered against the Sheriff’s Office in its official capacity. Id. To the extent that Otero 

alleged substantive claims against Cook County in the Complaint, the Court dismissed those claims under 

Rule 12(b)(6) on October 18, 2012. (See R. 24 at 12.) 

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BACKGROUND

 Plaintiff Brian Otero alleges that Defendants maintain an unlawful policy or practice of 

“detaining, holding in custody, or imprisoning free citizens following a trial or other proceeding 

at which the citizen is found not-guilty or otherwise acquitted.” (R. 1, Compl. ¶ 1.) According 

to Plaintiff, “[f]rom the time of the ‘not guilty’ verdict or judgment in favor of the criminal 

defendant, through the final processing step at the jail, Plaintiff and [c]lass members are 

subjected to Defendants’ illegal policies and/or procedures which result in class members being 

detained for unreasonable amounts of time and in an unreasonable manner.” (Id. ¶ 2.) 

 Chicago police arrested Plaintiff for an alleged burglary on November 23, 2009. Plaintiff 

was charged with burglary and held in Cook County Jail pending trial because he could not 

afford to make bail. Plaintiff stood trial for burglary in July 2011. On July 21, 2011 at 

approximately 6:20 p.m., the jury returned a verdict finding Plaintiff “not guilty” of all charges. 

Plaintiff had no outstanding warrants at the time of his acquittal. The Sheriff’s Office, however, 

did not release Plaintiff from Cook County Jail until 3:00 a.m., nearly nine hours after the jury 

returned its verdict. In the meantime, the Sheriff’s Office took Plaintiff back into custody, 

returned him to Cook County Jail, and processed him back into the general prison population. 

 The Sheriff asserts that these post-judgment procedures exist because “[w]hen a detainee 

is acquitted, the Cook County Jail staff do not yet know if that detainee can be released from 

[jail].” (R. 44, Def. Resp. Br. at 2.) While the staff checks for pending cases, outstanding 

warrants, and other circumstances that may prevent an acquitted detainee’s release, the Sheriff’s 

Office subjects the acquitted detainees to the same procedures applied to any detainees returning 

from court. 

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 The Sheriff’s Office (or a court security officer) places an acquitted detainee into custody 

and transports him back to Cook County Jail. For detainees who stood trial at the Cook County 

Criminal Courts Building, the Sheriff’s deputies transport the acquitted detainees through a 

series of holding cells on the way back to Cook County Jail. During this process, the deputies do 

not segregate the acquitted detainees from convicted felons, new detainees remanded to the 

Sheriff’s custody, or any other detainees returning from court. Once the detainees arrive at Cook 

County Jail, officers handcuff the acquitted detainees side-by-side with all other returning 

detainees, transport them to their assigned divisions, and process them back into the general jail 

population. 

While the acquitted detainee waits in jail along with the rest of the inmates, the Cook 

County Jail staff performs a series of checks to ensure that no grounds exist to hold the detainee. 

The staff does not begin this process, however, until it receives the court order releasing the 

acquitted detainee, which, Defendants assert, “can take hours.” (Def. Resp. Br. at 3.) Once the 

staff receives the court order and identifies the detainee to whom the order applies, the staff 

retrieves and reviews the detainee’s file (the “pack”) to ensure that the Sheriff’s Office should in 

fact release him. The staff also performs a LEADS check to determine if the detainee has any 

outstanding warrants or if the staff must contact any agencies before releasing the detainee. “In 

all cases, the records staff person makes inquiries into any and all possible warrants to rule out 

any measure that would hold that person in custody to avoid a wrongful release.” (Id.) The 

warrants check can take up to two hours to complete. 

After the records staff completes these checks, a sergeant and an auditor review the 

detainee’s pack to ensure that his release is appropriate. If everything is in order, the sergeant 

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directs the correction officers to retrieve the detainee from his division. The detainee then passes 

through two identification check points before leaving the jail. 

The Sheriff’s Office follows these procedures for all acquitted detainees at Cook County 

Jail. (See Mot. at 4-5.) The amount of time it takes the Sheriff’s Office to complete these 

procedures for a given acquitted detainee, however, varies based on several factors, including, 

among others, the amount of time it takes for the detainee’s paperwork to arrive from the court, 

the distance from the courthouse to Cook County Jail for detainees arriving from suburban 

courthouses, the number of detainees for whom the records office staff must review packs on that 

particular day and time, and the results of the detainee’s LEADS check. (See Def. Resp. Br. at 2-

4.) 

 The Sheriff’s Office followed these standard procedures with respect to Plaintiff Otero. 

The jury acquitted Plaintiff at approximately 6:20 p.m. The Sheriff’s deputies then took Plaintiff 

back into custody and transported him to a series of holding cells and eventually back to Cook 

County jail. During the transport back to jail, the Sheriff’s deputies did not segregate Plaintiff 

from the other detainees returning from court that day. Several of those detainees punched 

Plaintiff in the body and the head in one of the holding cells after learning that the jury had 

acquitted him. Once Plaintiff arrived at Cook County Jail, the correction officers handcuffed 

him along with the other detainees and processed him back into the general jail population to 

wait for the results of the records office’s review of his pack. The Sheriff’s Office released 

Plaintiff from Cook County Jail at 3:00 a.m., nearly nine hours after the jury had acquitted him. 

In his Complaint, Plaintiff asserts that the Sheriff’s unlawful detention policy and the 

Sheriff’s continued detention of him after his acquittal constitute violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

(Compl. ¶ 1.) Plaintiff seeks to assert this claim on behalf of a class of similarly situated former 

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detainees in Cook County. (Id. ¶ 2.) Specifically, Plaintiff requests certification of the following 

class: 

All males who were criminal defendants in Cook County, were detained at the 

time of trial or other proceeding and were found not guilty or otherwise acquitted 

at a trial or other proceeding and for whom the Sheriff’s Office no longer had any 

legal right to detain from April 27, 2010 through the present. 

(Mot. at 7 n.5.) 

LEGAL STANDARD 

 To obtain class certification under Rule 23, a plaintiff must satisfy each requirement of 

Rule 23(a)—numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation—and one 

subsection of Rule 23(b). See Harper v. Sheriff of Cook County, 581 F.3d 511, 513 (7th Cir. 

2009); Oshana v. Coca–Cola Co., 472 F.3d 506, 513 (7th Cir. 2006). In this case, Plaintiff 

argues that class certification is appropriate under Rule 23(b)(3) or, in the alternative, Rule 

23(b)(2). (Mot. at 14.) A court may certify a Rule 23(b)(3) class where “questions of law and 

fact common to members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual 

members, and . . . a class action is superior to other available methods for fairly and efficiently 

resolving the dispute in question.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). Under Rule 23(b)(2), a court may 

certify a class where “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that 

apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is 

appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). 

In order to grant class certification under Rule 23, the Court must be “satisfied, after a 

rigorous analysis” that the Rule's requirements are met. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, ––– 

U.S. ––––, 131 S. Ct. 2541, 2551, 180 L. Ed. 2d 374 (2011) (citation omitted). “‘Failure to meet 

any of the Rule's requirements precludes class certification.’” Harper, 581 F.3d at 513 (quoting 

Arreola v. Godinez, 546 F.3d 788, 794 (7th Cir. 2008)). Satisfaction of these requirements, on 

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the other hand, categorically entitles a plaintiff to pursue his claim as a class action. See Shady 

Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Ins., 559 U.S. 393, 398-99, 130 S. Ct. 1431, 176 L. 

Ed. 2d 311 (2009). The plaintiff bears the burden of proving each disputed requirement by a 

preponderance of the evidence. Messner v. Northshore Univ. HealthSystem, 669 F.3d 802, 811 

(7th Cir. 2012). District courts have broad discretion in determining whether the plaintiff has 

satisfied this burden. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 345, 99 S. Ct. 2326, 60 L. Ed. 

2d 931 (1979); Messner, 669 F.3d at 811. 

ANALYSIS

I. The Seventh Circuit’s Decisions in Harper and Portis 

In order to determine whether Plaintiff’s proposed class satisfies Rule 23’s requirements, 

a review of the Seventh Circuit’s opinions in Harper v. Sheriff of Cook County, 581 F.3d 511 

(7th Cir. 2009). and Portis v. City of Chicago, 613 F.3d 702 (7th Cir. 2010), is instructive. In 

Harper, the plaintiff claimed that the Sheriff of Cook County was unconstitutionally holding new 

detainees after bond had been posted. See 581 F.3d 511. The district court granted the plaintiff’s 

motion for certification of a Rule 23(b)(3) class, but the Seventh Circuit vacated the decision, 

finding that class treatment of the plaintiff’s claim was not appropriate. Id. at 512. The Seventh 

Circuit reasoned that the constitutionality of the detentions at issue depended on whether the 

length of the delay before the detainee’s release was reasonable in any given case, which, in turn, 

depended on “how long each detainee was held after bond was posted and what justifications 

there might be for the delay on that particular day or for that particular detainee.” Id. at 515. 

The court noted various justifications that may exist for any given delay, including “the time of 

day, whether the jail was processing an unusually large number of detainees at that time, whether 

other events occurring at the jail legitimately slowed processing times, whether the detainee’s 

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lack of cooperation delayed processing, etc.” Id. (citing Lewis v. O’Grady, 853 F.2d 1366, 1370 

(7th Cir. 1988)). The court therefore determined that “[l]iability, to saying nothing of damages, 

would need to be determined on an individual basis. Thus, common issues do not predominate 

over individual issues, making this case inappropriate for class disposition.” Id. 

 Similarly, in Portis, the Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s decision to certify a 

Rule 23(b)(3) class in a case challenging the Chicago Police Department’s allegedly 

unconstitutional detention of individuals arrested for non-jailable offenses. See 613 F.3d 702. 

The plaintiffs contended that taking more than two hours to process and release those individuals 

made their detention unreasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 703. The 

Seventh Circuit held that the district court erred in prescribing a two-hour limit to this process 

and, as a result, erred in certifying a class premised on the propriety of that limitation. Id. at 705. 

As the Seventh Circuit recognized, to prevail on their claim, the plaintiffs would need to show 

“that any particular detention was excessive, and the court must examine not only the length of a 

given detention but also the reasons why release was deferred.” Id. The Seventh Circuit 

concluded that “[b]ecause reasonableness is a standard rather than a rule, and because one 

detainee’s circumstances differs from another’s, common questions do not predominate and class 

certification [was] inappropriate.” Id. 

II. Plaintiff’s Attempt to Distinguish Harper and Portis Is Unavailing 

 Plaintiff acknowledges that if he sought to challenge only the alleged unreasonableness 

of the Sheriff’s delay in releasing acquitted detainees from Cook County Jail, Harper and Portis

would preclude class certification. (See R. 46, Pl. Reply Br. at 8-10.) Plaintiff attempts to 

distinguish this case from Harper and Portis, however, on the grounds that here he is challenging 

specific aspects of the Sheriff’s detention procedures that applied equally to all potential class 

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members, not just the allegedly unreasonable length of the delay in the release of potential class 

members after their acquittal. (Id. at 9.) 

 As Plaintiff notes, numerous courts in this district have granted class certification in cases 

where the plaintiffs have challenged the constitutionality of specific detention procedures on 

grounds other than an allegedly unreasonable delay in the detainee’s release that results from 

those procedures. See, e.g., Streeter v. Sheriff of Cook County, 256 F.R.D. 609 (N.D. Ill. 2009) 

(claiming that the Sheriff’s Office conducted group strip searches for detainees returning from 

court in an “unreasonable and unnecessarily humiliating manner”); Parish v. Sheriff of Cook 

County, No. 07 4369, 2008 WL 4812875 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 2008) (alleging that the Sheriff had 

implemented a policy of denying or delaying necessary prescription medication to detainees at 

Cook County Jail); Young v. County of Cook, No. 06 C 552, 2007 WL 1238920 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 

25, 2007) (challenging the constitutionality of the Sheriff’s policy of strip searching every 

detainee that enters Cook County Jail, irrespective of the nature of the charges against him); 

Jackson v. Sheriff of Cook County, No. 06 C 0493, 2006 WL 3718041 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 14, 2006) 

(challenging the Sheriff’s policy of requiring pre-trial detainees to undergo screening for 

sexually transmitted diseases without valid consent); Bullock v. Sheahan, 525 F.R.D. 227 (N.D. 

Ill. 2004) (alleging that the Sheriff’s different treatment of male and female detainees with 

respect to the jail’s “out-processing” procedures violated the Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendments); see also Flood v. Dominguez, 270 F.R.D. 413 (N.D. Ind. 2010) (certifying class 

of pre-trial detainees allegedly held in holdings cells for more than 24 hours without bedding, 

personal hygiene items, allotted exercise time, and full meals).2

 In all but one of the cases 

 

2

 Plaintiff also cites two cases from district courts in the District of Columbia in which the courts certified 

classes with respect to the plaintiffs’ claims that the department of corrections had detained inmates 

“beyond the point at which their release had been ordered, for a period ranging from an extra day to many 

days or even months on end.” See Barnes v. District of Columbia, 242 F.R.D. 113, 115 (D.D.C. 2007); 

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Plaintiff cites, class certification occurred pre-Harper. Neither Harper nor Portis, though,

necessarily precludes class certification in these types of cases challenging the constitutionality 

of a specific detention procedure. 

 Indeed, the Seventh Circuit implicitly left open the possibility for class treatment where 

the plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of a particular detention procedure as long as the 

length of detention is not a central issue in the case. See Harper, 581 F.3d at 514. In Harper, the 

court noted that “Harper assured [the court] multiple times at oral argument that this case is not 

about searching and swabbing, and we take him at his word.” Id. The court went on to explain 

that having “[f]ail[ed] to take issue with any particular intake procedure, Harper [was] left with a 

claim that the Sheriff [was] unconstitutionally holding detainees after bond ha[d] been posted.” 

Id. at 514-15. The Seventh Circuit held that this claim was inappropriate for class disposition, 

but it did not necessarily foreclose class treatment, in an appropriate case, of claims challenging 

a specific intake procedure, like those that Harper had abandoned. Id. at 515. 

 The Seventh Circuit considered Harper’s argument that a common issue—the assignment 

of a jail identification number to a detainee who had posted bond—predominated, but ultimately 

rejected it, finding that Harper “[was] trying to focus the class certification discussion around an 

issue that is not central to the litigation” in order to satisfy Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance 

requirement. Id. The Seventh Circuit further noted that there was “nothing unconstitutional 

about assigning an identification number to a detainee who has been remanded to the custody of 

the Sheriff, unless it takes an unreasonable amount of time or is done in some unreasonable 

manner.” Id. at 516. Because those were both “individual issues,” the court held that Harper had 

failed to establish predominance. Id. In doing so, though, the Seventh Circuit left the door open 

 

Bynum v. District of Columbia, 214 F.R.D. 27 (D.D.C. 2003). These cases, however, contradict the 

Seventh Circuit’s holdings in Harper and Portis, which serve as binding authority on this Court. 

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for a plaintiff in an appropriate “overdetention-plus” case to obtain class certification if the 

plaintiff challenged a specific detention procedure on grounds other than the allegedly 

unreasonable amount of time that the procedure took to perform or the unreasonable manner in 

which the Sheriff’s Office performed it. 

 Even if the Seventh Circuit would approve of class certification in certain “overdetentionplus” cases, though, Plaintiff bears the burden of establishing that this “overdetention-plus” case 

is amenable to class treatment. In Flood v. Dominguez—the only post-Harper decision Plaintiff 

cites regarding predominance—the District Court for the Northern District of Indiana certified a 

class of pre-trial detainees held in the Lake County, Indiana jail on the plaintiffs’ claim that the 

sheriff unconstitutionally detained them in a holding cell for more than 24 hours without basic 

amenities such as bedding, personal hygiene items, time to exercise, and adequate food. See 270 

F.R.D. at 420-22. The plaintiffs’ core complaint in Flood was that the jail “had a policy of not 

providing detainees beds, mattresses, or other bedding on which to sleep,” which, combined with 

other conditions in the holding cells, deprived the detainees of any meaningful sleep for over 24 

hours. Id. at 416. The district court held that class certification was appropriate and 

distinguished Harper on the grounds that the common conditions to which the defendants 

allegedly subjected the detainees, not the length of their detentions, were the central issues in the 

case: 

[In Harper,] the only potentially common issue—whether it was reasonable to 

assign a jail identification number to a detainee before allowing him to be 

released on bond—did not predominate because the plaintiff’s identification 

number was not central to the litigation. In contrast to Harper, the common 

issues here—lack of bedding, no hygiene items, no exercise, and inadequate 

food—are fundamental to the Plaintiffs’ claims and allegedly gave rise to the 

injuries they suffered. 

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Id. at 420 (citations omitted).3

 

 Plaintiff argues that the present case is more akin to Flood and other cases challenging 

specific detention procedures than it is to Harper and Portis, which dealt primarily with 

challenges to the allegedly unreasonable length of class members’ detentions. (See Pl. Reply Br. 

at 9-10.) The allegations in the Complaint and Plaintiff’s broad proposed class, however, belie 

Plaintiff’s argument. The thrust of Plaintiff’s claim is that the Sheriff’s Office held acquitted 

detainees for an unreasonable amount of time after their acquittals. Although Plaintiff alleges 

generally in the Complaint that Defendants subjected him and other class members to unlawful 

policies that “result[ed] in class members being detained for unreasonable amounts of time and

in an unreasonable manner” (see Compl. ¶ 1 (emphasis added)), most of Plaintiff’s allegations 

focus on the allegedly unreasonable delay in his release, rather than the constitutionality of any 

specific detention procedures. (See, e.g., id. ¶¶ 14(a)-(b), 26, 29, 31-32.) 

 Furthermore, even where Plaintiff identifies specific procedures he challenges as 

“unreasonable” (see id. ¶¶ 27 (placing Plaintiff in handcuffs and transporting him back to the 

Cook County Jail after his acquittal), 28 (detaining Plaintiff in the “bullpen” upon his return to 

Cook County Jail)), he appears to challenge those procedures in large part on the grounds that 

they caused an unreasonable delay in his and other proposed class members’ releases. (See id.

¶ 32.) Plaintiff alleges, for example, that holding an acquitted detainee in the general prison 

population while the Sheriff’s Office performs the administrative tasks related to his release 

 

3

 The court in Flood also distinguished Harper on the grounds that “the plaintiff in Harper did not limit 

the proposed class by the length of time detainees were held after they posted bond,” while the plaintiffs 

in Flood limited the proposed class to only those detainees that defendants had held for more than 24 

hours. Id. Flood, however, was decided two months before Portis, which reversed class certification in 

an “overdetention” case even though the plaintiffs included a two-hour limitation in the class definition. 

See Portis, 613 F.3d at 704-05 (“Given the contextual nature of the analysis under the fourth 

amendment, . . it is very hard to justify an inflexible two-hour rule. More than hard. It is impossible.” 

(citation omitted)). 

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“substantially and necessarily increases the procedural steps for processing out an individual,” 

and, it follows, increases the length of the detainee’s post-acquittal detention. (Id.) Plaintiff 

further alleges that the Sheriff’s policies regarding the performance of post-acquittal checks for 

warrants and holds “is a laborious and time consuming process that unnecessarily prolongs an 

individual’s detention . . . .” (Id.; see also id. ¶ 29 (noting that Plaintiff remained locked in the 

“bullpen” for approximately twelve hours while Defendants conducted their procedures to 

process Plaintiff for release).) 

 Plaintiff’s motion for class certification also focused largely on the unreasonable delay in 

the release of acquitted detainees, rather than challenges to any specific detention procedures 

applied to them irrespective of the time those procedures took or the time they added to an 

acquitted detainee’s detention. (See, e.g., Mot. at 1 (“Any then they wait. And they continue to 

wait, generally for several hours, until Defendant finds the time to complete a post-acquittal 

check for warrants and to navigate a host of other administrative checkpoints that have been 

needlessly interposed between these prisoners’ supposed victories at trial and their freedom-infact.”); id. at2 (“But because individuals who are found not-guilty or are otherwise acquitted are 

free citizens entitled to a prompt release, the practices employed by Defendant violate their 

constitutional rights.”); see also id. at 3-6.) Plaintiff attempts to distance his claims from pure 

“overdetention” claims in his reply brief in order to distinguish this case from Harper and Portis

by arguing that he “is not claiming that the mere length of his or any other class member’s 

detention was unreasonable . . . . Rather, Plaintiff challenges specific aspects of Defendants’ 

release procedures (or lack thereof) that applied equally to all class members and which, 

collectively, create an unconstitutional policy or practice.” (Pl. Reply Br. at 9.) The allegations 

in the Complaint, Plaintiff’s broad proposed class, and even his arguments in his opening brief, 

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however, undermine Plaintiff’s purported new position. Like in Harper, Plaintiff fails to explain 

how any of the specific detention procedures he challenges are unconstitutional “unless [they] 

take[] an unreasonable amount of time or [are] done in some unreasonable manner.” See 

Harper, 581 F.3d at 516. Because those are individual issues, see id., Plaintiff has not satisfied 

Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). The Court, therefore, 

denies Plaintiff’s request for certification of a Rule 23(b)(3) class.4

III. Rule 23(b)(2) 

Plaintiff requests, in the alternative to his motion for certification of a Rule 23(b)(3) class, 

that the Court certify a Rule 23(b)(2) class. (Mot. at 14.) Rule 23(b)(2) permits certification of a 

class where “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply 

generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is 

appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). Plaintiff, however, does 

not have standing to obtain the prospective relief that he seeks. (See R. 24.) The Court 

dismissed Plaintiff’s claim for injunctive and other equitable relief on October 18, 2012. (Id.) 

As the Court explained, Plaintiff does not have standing to seek prospective relief because 

although he previously was incarcerated in Cook County Jail, he is not currently detained there. 

(Id. at 8.) Any allegations that he may one day be arrested, detained in Cook County Jail, 

acquitted, and then detained after his acquittal, moreover, are too speculative to impart standing 

to seek prospective relief. (Id. at 9.) 

 

4

 Plaintiff argues, in the alternative, that class certification is appropriate under Rule 23(c)(4), which 

permits a court, when appropriate, to certify a class with respect to particular issues only. (See Mot. at 

14-15; Pl. Reply Br. at 14-15.) According to Plaintiff, “the issues of the existence and constitutionality of 

Defendants’ release procedures . . . . are unquestioningly common to every class member.” (Pl. Reply Br. 

at 14.) As explained above, however, the determination of whether Defendants’ release procedures based 

on the length of the detention are constitutional is not suitable for class treatment under Harper and 

Portis. The Court, therefore, denies Plaintiff’s request to certify a class on particular issues under Rule 

23(c)(4). 

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Because the proposed class consists of previously acquitted detainees, nearly all proposed 

class members also likely lack standing to seek prospective relief. Certification of a Rule 

23(b)(2) class is inappropriate under these circumstances. See Dukes, 131 S. Ct. at 2559-60 

(finding that Rule 23(b)(2) did not authorize certification of a class where about half of the 

proposed class members lacked standing to seek injunctive or declaratory relief with respect to 

Wal-Mart’s allegedly unlawful employment practices because they no longer worked for WalMart). 

Finally, Plaintiff fails to establish that “final injunctive relief or corresponding 

declaratory relief” would be appropriate with respect to the proposed class as a whole. Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 23(b)(2). The Seventh Circuit has held that overdetention claims require individualized 

inquiries into the length of an individual’s detention and the potential justifications for the delay 

in that individual’s release. See Harper, 581 F.3d at 514-16; Porter, 613 F.3d at 704-05; see also 

Lewis,853 F.2d at 1370 (“We recognize that the administrative tasks incident to a release of a 

prisoner from custody may require some time to accomplish—in this case perhaps a number of 

hours. Reasonable time must be allowed for such matters as transportation, identity verification, 

and processing. . . . What is a reasonable time for detaining a prisoner in custody is a question 

best left open for juries to answer based on the facts presented in each case.”). For these reasons, 

the Court denies Plaintiff’s request to certify a class pursuant to Rule 23(b)(2). 

CONCLUSION 

 For the reasons explained above, the Court denies Plaintiff’s motion for class 

certification. The denial is with prejudice to the extent Plaintiff seeks to certify a class based on 

the alleged unreasonableness of the delay in releasing acquitted detainees from Cook County 

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Jail, but without prejudice to the extent Plaintiff seeks to certify a class challenging specific 

detention procedures that the Cook County Sheriff applied to acquitted detainees. 

DATED: December 20, 2013 ENTERED 

 ______________________________ 

 AMY J. ST. EVE 

 U.S. District Court Judge 

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