Federal judge appoints monitor to oversee changes at Fulton Jail, per DOJ agreement

Kenney will track the implementation of a series of requirements, including development of plans and policies to keep incarcerated people safe from violence and maintain doors and locks in working order. She also will be tasked with issuing a public report on the jail’s progress every six months.

She has more than 32 years of experience in corrections, according to court documents filed as part of the case. Since April 2022, Kenney has served on a three-person expert panel that oversees the use of force in certain Los Angeles County jail facilities, as part of a court-enforced settlement agreement.

She also has worked as a consultant with a criminal justice law enforcement firm, which helped state and local correction departments improve correction operations and trained correction staff on population management and leadership.

Kenney is the former interim commissioner for the Kentucky Department of Correction and worked for 25 years with the federal Bureau of Prisons, where she served as the assistant director/general counsel for 13 years.

“Ms. Kenney’s experience as Assistant Director/General Counsel of BOP and overseeing implementation of another complex consent decree reflects ‘demonstrated project management experience,’ and will be instrumental in managing oversight of this Consent Decree,” both parties wrote in a motion asking for Kenney to be named as the monitor.

Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

In a statement, Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts said he was pleased with Kenney’s appointment, considering her “impressive credentials” and looked forward to working with her to improve the troubled facility. He hopes Kenney can “bring integrity to the process and will ensure compliance by all parties.”

“The appointment of the Monitor represents an important step forward in implementation of the consent decree. Fulton County remains committed to collaborating with the Department of Justice and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to improve jail conditions as expeditiously as possible,” Pitts said.

The agreement was reached months after the Justice Department released a report, which found jail conditions were “abhorrent, unconstitutional” and violated the Eighth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The November report also detailed instances in which sheriff’s office deputies frequently failed to protect inmates’ safety and presided over an environment that has led to homicides, stabbings and sexual abuse at the Rice Street facility and three annexes.

The agreement does not specify a deadline for the county to address all of the concerns raised in the investigation, although it does require that full compliance be maintained for a year before the agreement can be terminated, Ryan Buchanan, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said at the time.

The DOJ began investigating the Fulton County Jail in July 2023, after the death of Lashawn Thompson in the jail’s psychiatric wing. An autopsy found that Thompson’s death was due to severe neglect, and photos showed him covered in insects in a cell filled with garbage.

Opened in 1989, the Fulton County jail was under federal supervision between 2006 and 2015. It currently houses roughly 2,000 people, down from the more than 3,200 who were there 18 months ago.

More than 60 inmates died in the jail between 2009 and October 2022, the highest total for any jail in Georgia during that time, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation. Ten more inmates died in custody in 2023. At least four deaths were reported in 2024.

An inmate at the jail died Feb. 3 at a local hospital, just days after he was found unresponsive in his cell.