By Michael Miner
“Naked, with menstrual blood dribbling down her legs, she performed a series of humiliating tasks,” Marlan reported. “Following commands given by correctional officers, the women opened their mouths, lifted their breasts, and ran their hands through their hair. Then, Townsend says, they had to spread their buttocks and bend and squat while coughing….Townsend says two others bled onto the floor as well, and that two women in the group were vomiting. She also says the officers in charge taunted the inmates, calling them ‘whores and bitches.’”
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Eventually, hoping to settle the suit out of court, the Cook County Department of Corrections, which Sheahan oversees, offered to videotape a CLAIM class for Marlan and allow her to interview inmates and jail officials by telephone. The Reader rejected those terms.
The judge based his ruling on an admirably vigorous reading of the First Amendment. Sheahan’s office had contended that it refused to let Marlan back into the jail not because of what she wrote but because she’d asked for access for one story and ended up writing another. If that were the case, Moran responded, what of it?
