A federal judge declined to throw out a class action accusing Fulton County Sheriff Ted Jackson and his chief jailer of keeping inmates behind bars after they were set to be released if a statewide criminal database happened to break down.

One such outage, in November 2014, resulted in hundreds of inmates being held after they were otherwise cleared for release. As a result, more than 300 people remained jailed for a day or more until the Georgia Crime Information Center database came back online and jail staffers could check whether there were outstanding warrants or holds pending before turning them loose.