by Chuck Sharman

On March 23, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina approved a $3.8 settlement paid by Richland County for the death of Lason Butler, during his incarceration in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (ASGDC). Despite evident symptoms of a mental health crisis, he was left to die of dehydration in a cell so disgusting that the coroner who found his rat-bitten body said flies and gnats flew from his mouth when opened. The jail’s contracted medical provider, Wellpath LLC, reportedly agreed to a separate $6 million settlement in state court.

Butler, 27, was cited for a misdemeanor traffic violation after crashing his vehicle into another on January 31, 2022. Cleared at a medical center, he was booked in to ASGDC. But because of his “erratic behavior,” he was isolated in a Special Housing Unit (SHU) cell—even though, as noted in the complaint later filed on his behalf, Defendant County officials “knew [that] housing an inmate with mental health needs there was inappropriate and improper.”

The next day, jailers reported that Butler refused to be seen at the jail medical clinic. A week later, his fellow detainees were reporting that his cell “was covered in feces and that [he] was barking like a dog.” A day later, on February 8, 2022, Butler was finally seen by a Wellpath mental health provider, who observed that he was “floridly psychotic” and failed to respond when approached. Eventually, the provider was able to learn that Butler “was thinking about suicide or harming someone but was unable to answer as to why.”

Three days later, Butler’s initial assessment for placement on suicide watch noted that he was “not responding to staff” and “lying on the floor nude” in his cell. The assessment also recorded that he was “not eating or drinking; that his memory was impaired; that he had poor judgment; poor insight; limited interactions; lack of self-care, eating, and sleeping; flat affect; and that it was not possible to verbally communicate with [him] because he was lying on the floor nude and unresponsive to direct questions.”

A Wellpath nurse decided to check Butler’s vital signs. But a guard wouldn’t open his cell door because understaffing meant there wasn’t a second guard on hand, as jail policy required. Butler’s suicide watch finally began at 6:40 p.m. on February 11, 2022. At 7:20 a.m. the following morning, his breakfast tray had sat untouched for an hour, so guards called emergency responders. They arrived and pronounced Butler dead. They also noted that his body bore rat bites and that his cell had no running water. An autopsy revealed the cause of death was dehydration. Over his 12-day incarceration, his weight had plummeted from 257 to 215 pounds.

Suit Filed, Survives Summary Judgment Motions

With the aid of attorneys Bakari T. Sellers, Joseph P. Strom, Jr., Mario A. Pacella, Amy E. Willbanks and Alexandra M. Benevento of Strom Law Firm LLC in Columbia, along with attorney Audia Jones of her eponymous Houston firm, Butler’s mother, Lakeisha Butler, filed suit on behalf of his Estate against the County and its jailers in the federal district court, as well as a separate action against Wellpath in state Court of Common Pleas. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she accused jailers of deliberate indifference to Butler’s serious medical need, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights. She also sought to extend liability to the County for maintaining a custom or practice that gave rise to the circumstances, as permitted under Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Her state-court suit also accused Wellpath of his wrongful death.

Plaintiff and Defendant County officials proceeded to file cross motions for summary judgment, most of which the district court rebuffed on March 24, 2025. Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment was denied as to Defendant guards because their state of mind was in dispute—i.e., whether they were subjectively aware that their actions put the detainee at risk—and thus more properly weighed by a jury. Likewise, her Monell claim against the County was also denied summary judgment, since the district court said that a jury should determine whether the evidence amounted to a custom or policy that caused Butler’s death.

Defendants also sought summary judgment in their favor on Plaintiff’s claims that the jail’s conditions of confinement were so awful that subjecting Butler to them made the jailers liable for deliberate indifference. As the district court recalled, a deputy coroner testified that the cell “was so infested with flies and gnats that flies flew out of Lason’s mouth when they removed the sheet from over his body.” Evidence of “constant and recurring plumbing issues” could reasonably be traced to having a single plumber on hand to keep 400 toilets running in the massive lockup, which holds some 1,100 detainees. Moreover, most Defendant jailers could not show that they were unaware of these conditions and unaware that the conditions were unconstitutional; therefore, they were not entitled to a qualified immunity defense. See: Butler v. Richland Cty., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54356 (D.S.C.).

The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement. Under its terms, the County agreed to pay Plaintiff $3.8 million, including $1,520,000 in fees for her attorneys and another $13,857.71 in their costs to be reimbursed. The balance was awarded to Plaintiff and John Matthews, who was Lason Butler’s father. See: Butler v. Richland Cty., USDC (D.S.C.), Case No. 8:22-cv-02541. According to The State, Wellpath’s $6 million payout was made by its insurers; the company entered bankruptcy in November 2024 and announced an exit plan in May 2025, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.31; and May 2025, p.56.]  

Additional source: The State

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