A decade-old settlement requiring the state to improve medical care at a Baltimore jail was extended for the third time this June after the federal court found the state remained partially or fully noncompliant with several requirements.
The 2016 settlement of Duvall v. Moore established a consent decree requiring the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to comply with a list of provisions related to facility maintenance and medical and mental health care for inmates at the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center. The department must submit regular reports to the court and is subject to oversight from court-appointed monitors.
The original lawsuit was actually brought to federal court by inmates at the Baltimore jail in 1976, and consolidated five years later with a class-action suit that entailed a decree setting standards of confinement in the facility, including medical care. Over the following decades, the case was revised, settled and revived multiple times, including in the years leading up to the 2016 settlement that established the current decree…