Tenth Circuit Reverses Summary Dismissal of Claim Over Prisoner’s Suicide in Oklahoma Jail
On November 26, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed the summary dismissal of a failure-to-train claim in a federal civil rights lawsuit over the suicide of an in-transit federal prisoner being held overnight in an Oklahoma jail.
In August 2017, Kongchi Justin Thao, 20, plead guilty to conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute and was sentenced to a year and a day of incarceration and asked to serve his time near his family in California. The U.S. Marshals Service prepared him for transport to California. The preparation included a marshal completing a medical summary for prisoners in transport, Form 553. “The only information on that form relevant to an inmate’s mental health is a box that can be checked to indicate if the inmate had been placed on suicide watch or experienced psychiatric decompensations in the prior month,” the Court noted. “That box was left unchecked on Mr. Thao’s Form 553, and he was cleared for transit on November 13, 2017.”
Two days later, Thao arrived at the Grady County jail in Chickasha, Oklahoma. The jail receives over 100 “turnaround” prisoners every 12 hours. They are only at the jail for an overnight stay and are kept separate from general population prisoners. Accordingly, Thao was placed in a segregated holding pod used for turnaround prisoners.
At around 2:40 a.m., two jailers and a nurse arrived at the pod to hand out medication.
“When the door to the pod opened,” according to court documents, “Mr. Thao rushed toward it, apparently ‘trying to run out of the room.’”
Jailer Christopher Harrison subdued and handcuffed the 5’2”, 120-pound Thao. He was taken to an elevator surrounded by Harrison and five additional jailers. “While Mr. Thao was prone and handcuffed on the elevator floor, Officer Trever Henneman” administered a ‘drive stun’” from his Taser on Thao’s right thigh.
Thao was placed in Cell 126, which primarily functions as a shower cell and thus, unlike other the jail’s other holding cells, has no camera and has a solid hatch cover over the cell’s only window.
Harrison gave Thao a towel to dry the wet cell floor. Jailer Rebecca Brown did the only sight check done on him at 3:07 a.m. Sooner thereafter, he began yelling pleas for help and not to kill him, requests to go ahead and kill him, and threats that he would kill himself.
At 4:22 a.m., Henneman opened the door to Cell 126 to prepare Thao for transport and found him hanging from the cell door handle using the towel. He died from his injuries.
Thao’s estate filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against the Grady County Criminal Justice Authority (GCCJA) and various jail officials alleging excessive use of force and failure to train. The district court granted GCCJA’s motion for summary judgment after finding that jail policy did not sanction excessive use of force and there was undisputed evidence of some jailers being trained on how to recognize and respond to suicidal prisoners. Aided by D.C. attorney Jennifer L. Clark, the estate appealed.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the excessive use of force claim as jail policy limited the use of force, mandated use-of-force training, and required review of use-of-force, thus passing constitutional muster.
The Court reversed dismissal of the failure-to-train claim as the testimony of various jail officials raised a material issue of fact as to whether any of the jailers involved received any formal training on how to recognize and respond to suicidal prisoners. They were apparently expected to learn this “on the job” and from written training materials the jail warden falsely believed contained suicide-related materials. This may be constitutionally inadequate per Lance v. Morris, 985 F.3d 787 (10th Cir. 2021). The failure-to-train claim was reinstated and the case remanded. See: Thao v. Grady County Criminal Justice Authority, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 30907.
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Related legal cases
Thao v. Grady County Criminal Justice Authority
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 30907 |
| Level | Court of Appeals |
Lance v. Morris
| Year | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 985 F.3d 787 (10th Cir. 2021) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |
| Conclusion | Bench Verdict |