Plaintiffs Alanna Dunn, Reginald Haymon, Adam Day, Eric Zeider, Cameron Leonard, and Jason Wilson filed this class action alleging that the deliberate indifference of Cuyahoga County and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department caused them to be over-detained in the Cuyahoga County Jail after the legal basis for their detention ceased to exist.
Plaintiffs retained Lacey Keller, a data scientist, as an expert witness to review and standardize files produced by the County relating to releases occurring between February 23, 2021 and December 31, 2023 while the County retained Dr. Sean Malone, a consultant who primarily works in statistics, finance, and economics, to rebut Keller’s analyses.
The County sought to preclude Keller’s report while Plaintiffs sought to preclude Malone’s report.
Data Science Expert Witness
Lacey R. Keller is a seasoned data scientist with over 15 years of experience applying data to litigation, law enforcement, and investigations.
She has been deposed nearly 30 times and has testified in over a half-dozen trials. She also joined the Washburn University faculty in 2025.
Statistics Expert Witness
Sean T. Malone is a consultant who primarily works in statistics, finance, and economics. He teaches finance and statistics at Trinity University.
Discussion by the Court
Lacey Keller
Plaintiffs’ counsel asked Keller to conduct a variety of analyses, including calculating the time it took the County to release individuals after a triggering action, among other analyses on the timing of certain events relating to releases.
For detainees with release-triggering event and no holds on their release, Keller found most were released in under 6 hours, and 95% were released in under 10 hours.
In most cases, Keller found a booking hold added an additional 90 minutes to the release time. Once a booking hold was removed, the release usually occurred within the hour.
Analysis
The County argued that Keller’s report is unreliable and cannot be used to either (a) show the average time it took to release a detainee; or (b) ascertain whether a person is a member of the proposed class because the detainee’s time to release was greater than 12 hours.
For the relevant time period, Keller identified 58,091 unique custody sessions. From there, Keller applied a series of exclusions to the data.
The County argued that Keller’s methodology and opinions are unreliable because they solely rely on limited data not suited for determining release times.
The County also faulted Keller’s report for not determining whether the data provided by Plaintiffs’ counsel could be used to determine actual time to release.
First, information counsel provided to an expert does not render the opinions on which the expert relies insufficient. Second, there is a reasonable factual basis for Keller’s opinions. The report explained the sources from which the data came. It explained the exclusions applied to the custody sessions to obtain a sub-dataset that contains only custody sessions where there is an available release triggering event and subsequent release (among other information).
Keller then explained how she conducted each calculation to arrive at her stated averages and conclusions. While the County vigorously challenges whether the underlying data can be used to calculate release times, those criticisms challenge the ultimate conclusions and not the reliability of Keller’s methodology or analysis.
Whether the calculations are correct, accurate, or credible, is a separate question. As a result, the Court found that Keller’s methodology was reliable.
Sean Malone
Malone’s main conclusions are: Keller’s methodology for calculating time to release is unreliable because it is based on insufficient data and incomplete methods; Keller’s opinion is based on insufficient facts because it does not consider the individualized facts affecting time to release; Keller wrongfully groups together detainees leading to inaccurate time calculations; and Keller inappropriately excluded detainees which creates inaccurate time calculations.
Analysis
Plaintiffs argued that Malone is not qualified to opine on how to calculate over-detention of detainees because he is not an expert in release policies.
Plaintiffs added that Malone’s expert opinions amount to “nothing more than legal conclusions about what facts are relevant and necessary” to an over-detention analysis.
Lastly, Plaintiffs contended that Malone’s report is not the product of any reliable principles or methods.
Malone’s experience in statistics plainly relates to his criticisms of Keller’s methodology for collecting data. It is appropriate for an expert in statistical analysis to criticize statistics prepared by another expert witness. And while Plaintiffs argued that Keller’s analysis is merely an “objective” calculation of the “time to release,” Malone’s report properly offered criticism of Keller’s underlying data, including her selection and purported manipulation of data. Malone’s criticism of the “limited” dataset Keller used to develop averages for “time to release” is appropriate rebuttal testimony.
Because Malone is qualified to criticize the statistical analysis performed by Keller, and because his report properly challenges the data and methods used by Keller, the Court refused to exclude his report.
Held
- The Court denied the County’s motion in limine to preclude Lacey Keller’s expert report.
- The Court denied the Plaintiffs’ motion to strike the expert report of Dr. Sean Malone.
Key Takeaway
Malone’s criticism of the dataset Keller used and the methods she used to calculate her “time to release” analysis is proper expert rebuttal.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Dunn V. Cuyahoga County |
| Docket Number: | 1:23cv364 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Ohio Northern |
| Order Date: | March 31, 2026 |
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