Nearly $60,000 Awarded to Mother Of Dead Missouri Prisoner In Suit For His DOC Records
On April 23, 2024, the mother of a deceased Missouri prisoner prevailed on appeal against the state Department of Corrections (DOC), which a lower court had found knowingly violated the Missouri Sunshine Law when it denied her records about her son and his suicide, awarding her $59,508.99 in damages and legal fees.
Jahi Hynes, 27, was eight years into a 13-year term for burglary when he fatally hanged himself at Southeast Correctional Center (SECC) in Charleston on April 4, 2021. But it was a cascade of failures by staffers with DOC and its contracted medical provider, Corizon Health—now YesCare—that were ultimately blamed in the wrongful death suit filed by the dead prisoner’s mother.
Before she could file that complaint, however, Willa Hynes first had to battle DOC for more information than the phone call she received the day her son died, when a staffer told her that he had “hurt himself” and died, and that “the DOC could release no further information regarding the circumstances of his death.”
After months of fruitless email exchanges, Hynes retained counsel and filed a request pursuant to the state’s Sunshine Law for all records relating to her son, including surveillance camera footage covering his cell, and the investigation into his death. The DOC refused to release anything but an uncertified autopsy report, claiming that the remaining records fell under an exemption for those related to employee personnel records and institutional security.
Hynes then filed suit to compel production, and the DOC released an additional 173 pages of documents. But it continued to claim exemptions for nearly 1,000 more relevant offender records in its possession. The trial court then granted Hynes’ motion for summary judgment, finding that the DOC was required to produce the records. The DOC turned to the state Court of Appeals, Western District Division Three, but it dismissed the appeal since the trial court’s order was not a final one.
The case then proceeded to a bench trial to determine whether the violation was knowing and purposeful. The trial court found that the DOC had knowingly “forestall[ed] production of public records until the [Plaintiff] sue[d]” for the purpose of “hinder[ing] Hynes from pursuing a potential civil claim against the DOC relating to her son’s death.” Hynes was awarded $5,000 for the Sunshine Law violation plus $55,508.99 in attorney’s fees and costs. The DOC was also ordered to produce the records in 30 days, but it appealed again, and the trial court granted a provisional protective order forestalling release of the records pending appeal.
Court of Appeals Finds
for Prisoner’s Mom
Back at the Court of Appeals, though, the lower court’s ruling was largely upheld. The DOC relied on case law that acknowledged its right to withhold records based on its claimed exemptions. But the Court said that was the wrong legal tactic. The trial court had not ruled on the validity of those exemptions but instead found that the DOC failed to argue them. The appellate court agreed that once Hynes challenged the withholding, the burden shifted to the DOC to argue its reasoning and create a material fact issue for a trial to resolve. But “the DOC failed to establish—before the trial court and on appeal—that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether the records Hynes requested related to institutional security and thus were closed,” the Court declared. Therefore summary judgment for Hynes was appropriate.
The Court also rejected the DOC’s claim that its violation of the Sunshine Law, R.S.Mo. ch. 610.010 et seq., was not “knowing” and “purposeful.” The Court said that the former requires only “proof that the public entity knew that its failure to produce the report violated the Sunshine Law,” which the DOC acknowledged when it claimed its exemptions. As to the latter point, the Court noted that the DOC engaged in stonewalling that “forc[ed] Hynes to file this lawsuit, and then waited until the day after Hynes filed her motion for summary judgment in December to produce 173 pages of the records she had requested.” That, the Court continued, aligned the DOC’s violation with the holding in Buckner v. Burnett, 908 S.W.2d 908 (Mo. App. W.D. 1995), that “intentionally forestalling production of public records until the requester sues would be a purposeful violation of Chapter 610 and would be subject to a fine and reasonable attorney fees.”
The Court also granted a cross-appeal from Hynes to the lower court’s protective order, finding no basis for it in the Sunshine Law because that mandates release of open records without restriction. Hynes was represented by attorneys Linda C. Powers, Steven L. Groves and Stephanie A. Black of Groves Powers LLC in St. Louis. See: Hynes v. Mo. Dep’t of Corr., 689 S.W.3d 516 (Mo. Ct. App. 2024).
Once in possession of the records, and three years to the day after her son died, Hynes’ attorneys filed a wrongful death suit against the DOC, Corizon Health and numerous employees. The complaint recalled damning details from the video that DOC fought to quash: How Jahi Hynes was stripped to his boxers according to suicide prevention policy but then provided a pair of sweatpants—through a meal tray slot that was supposed to be locked—by a fellow prisoner mopping the hallway; and how two other prisoners “cadillaced” a tee shirt and the bedsheet he used to kill himself by tying strings between their cells and moving the items along it. All this, the complaint notes, went down while guards were supposed to be monitoring the video feed and making cell checks every 30 minutes. The case remains pending, and PLN will update developments as they are available. See: Hynes v. Mo. Dep’t of Corr., Mo. Cir. (Mississippi Cty.), Case No. 24MI-CV00185.
Additional Source: Missouri Independent
Related legal case
Hynes v. Mo. Dep’t of Corr.
| Year | 2024 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 689 S.W.3d 516 (Mo. Ct. App. 2024) |
| Level | State Court of Appeals |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |