For more than a decade, Loevy + Loevy represented the people housed at Stateville Correctional Center in a class action lawsuit, Dobbey v. Weidling. The suit, originally filed in 2013, sought to address threatening conditions at the prison. These hazardous conditions included structural vulnerabilities to the buildings as a result of more than $250 million dollars in deferred maintenance, exposure to extreme temperatures, unsafe drinking water, mold, and vermin.
The hazardous nature of the Stateville buildings was confirmed by several experts, including an evaluation of all Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) facilities by an independent justice facility planning firm CGL. That report ranked Stateville dead last in terms of its “Building Conditions Index (BCI)” among all the evaluated IDOC facilities, approaching the firm’s “inoperable” ranking.
The dangerous conditions of the prison were underlined on June 19, 2024, when a prisoner named Michael Broadway died in his cell at Stateville. The unlivable environment at the prison—including extreme temperatures, poor ventilation, and airborne and waterborne contaminants—likely played a role in his death.
In August 2024, Judge Andrea R. Wood ordered most of the Stateville population transferred to other facilities, finding a probable risk of irreparable harm from falling concrete attributed to the deteriorated masonry walls, ceilings, steel beams and window lintels at Stateville.
“The Court further finds that the public interest and the balancing of harms justify a preliminary injunction requiring the Illinois Department of Corrections to relocate the class members who remain housed in the general housing units at Stateville,” Judge Wood wrote.
In April 2025, the lawsuit was officially settled.
“It’s a relief knowing that officially Stateville is now closed,” James Soto, an exoneree and past class action member once incarcerated at the prison, said upon the long-awaited settlement of the lawsuit.
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