Dallas County paid $160,000 to two men kept in jail long after they served their time

Problems created within a year since Dallas County bought and switched jail and court management software have cost the county more money, and people in custody their freedom. The county recently paid a $100,000 federal civil rights lawsuit settlement after keeping a man jailed after a judge said he had served his time. Chris McDowell’s lawyer blamed the new software. The county also settled for $60,000 with Ryan Harris, who’d been held in jail for too long after his release date last year. His lawyer said missing paperwork, not software, caused the problem. Krishnaveni Gundu is a co-founder and executive director of the Texas Jail Project. She says that similar lawsuits are pending throughout Texas. In Chris McDowell’s case, the federal lawsuit alleged that computer system problems likely contributed to his continued detention in the Dallas County jail.

“The County’s longstanding flawed process for timely releasing inmates was exacerbated by technological issues as early as May 2023, when the County began migrating case files from the County’s 40-year-old Forvis criminal case management software system (Forvis) to Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey criminal case management software system,” states the lawsuit filed by civil rights attorney Dean Malone. “The County retired Forvis before Odyssey was fully operational. …[it]ineffectually integrated Odyssey and failed to train Odyssey users, which also led to more delays in releasing inmates after they had fully served their sentences.” McDowell had shoplifted from a Lancaster Wal-Mart two years ago and missed his probation appointment while he was in Ellis County’s jail for a drug offense. That landed him right back in Lew Sterrett. He stayed there at least 50 days after a judge said he had served enough time to satisfy his sentence. That day in court, he returned to the jail, excited, and packed his things. Then he asked a guard about the release process. "He got my name and stuff and he told me ‘Well you're going to [the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.’ I said ‘Excuse me?’" McDowell recalled. The county never sent McDowell to state prison, but it didn't send him home, either. He lost his job, his truck and 40 pounds.