A federal judge on Friday appointed a lead monitor with three decades of experience in corrections to oversee a consent decree meant to address dangerous and unhealthy jail conditions in Georgia’s most populous county.
U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May named Kathleen Kenney to the position after the U.S. Department of Justice, Fulton County and county Sheriff Pat Labat jointly sought her appointment as part of the consent decree process.
The Justice Department in July 2023 opened a civil rights investigation into jail conditions in Fulton County, citing violence, filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. That investigation found that jail officials failed to protect detainees from violence, used excessive force and held them in “unconstitutional and illegal conditions.”
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