Marcus Bynum, et al. v. The District of Columbia

The plaintiff class was a group of inmates at the District of Columbia’s jail who claimed that: (1) certain inmates were held past the date on which they were entitled to be released; and (2) certain inmates were subjected to full body cavity searches after being court-ordered released.

Brian Kriegler (prior to joining Econ One) was retained by counsel for the plaintiffs to analyze the District of Columbia’s jail and court databases, and to estimate the number of unlawful strip searches and over detainees, as well as the lengths of over detention. Dr. Kriegler’s research, which included the use of statistical programming and cross-referencing multiple databases, uncovered that there were approximately 25,000 inmates over detained and/or searched post release. Prior to trial, the case settled for approximately $12 million.