by David M. Reutter
On November 11, 2024, private prison and jail healthcare contractor Wellpath LLC filed for bankruptcy protection from debtors collectively owed $544 million, casting doubt on its ability to continue in business, much less pay settlements and verdicts owed in suits for poor medical care filed by prisoners, detainees or their estates.
One of the many cases still pending against the firm was filed by the family of a Virginia detainee who died of “salt wasting” after being denied medication necessary to control the disorder by officials at Henry County Adult Detention Center (HCADC), where Wellpath held the healthcare contract. Deborah Sue Damron, a firm nurse responsible for Brad Steven Hensley’s care, was not only named a defendant in the civil case but also criminally charged after his death with involuntary manslaughter.
Hensley, 42, was born with Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, which caused him to suffer from “salt wasting” when his body failed to produce cortisol needed to regulate blood pressure and blood sugar, among other things. Hensley’s condition was treated with twice daily doses of prescribed Prednisone and Fludrocortisone, which was noted at booking into HCADC on August 22, 2022. It was further noted that Hensley had ...
by David M. Reutter
Thousands of people die in local jails annually. The causes of death vary, leading researchers to seek identifiable trends. A report published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on December 19, 2023, found an underlying risk of mortality traced to “a heavy reliance on incarceration: the cycling of people into and out of jails where the impacts of addiction, mental illness, and health inequity can be exacerbated with dire consequences.” The nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) then issued an update on April 15, 2024, to an earlier analysis of local jail data, concluding that little has changed since that 2017 look at overuse of jails in the U.S.
Authored by Jessica L. Adler and Weiwei Chen, the NIH report used data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to assess mortality rates and conditions in about 450 local jails between 2008 and 2019. In the latter year alone, there were some 10.3 million admissions to jails which the study called “the front door of the criminal justice system.” Of the 734,500 people serving time in U.S. jails in 2019, two-thirds were pretrial detainees—a group which also comprised 76% of jail deaths.
Jails are diverse ...
by David M. Reutter
On November 4, 2024, former Georgia Department of Corrections (DOC) guard Larenzo Cheeks, 25, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for having sex with three prisoners at Lee Arrendale State Prison—injuring one so badly that she required surgery. Earlier, DOC also fired Deputy Warden Alonzo McMillian, 44, and guard Lt. Russell Clark, 62, when both were arrested in May 2024 and charged with having sex with prisoners.
Cheeks was fired, too, when a prisoner accused him of rape in December 2022, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Feb. 2023, p.63.] He had been on the job just a few months when he told another prisoner, “You make me want to fuck you,” before pulling her into a hallway and ripping off her pants. He had a sexual relationship with a second prisoner during November 2022. He was finally fired after taking the third prisoner to a shower area, where he shoved her against a wall and penetrated her so violently that she required a partial hysterectomy.
That last victim, “Jane Doe,” filed suit in federal court for the Northern District of Georgia on February 22, 2024, accusing Cheeks of violating her civil rights when he “violently ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 26, 2024, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) entered into the last of multiple settlement agreements with a Muslim prisoner who accused the prison agency of failing to accommodate his religion and discriminating against him because of his faith. The settlements provided for attorney’s ...
by David M. Reutter
On November 6, 2023, three of the “Fairbanks Four” accepted $5 million from the Alaska city for 18 years they spent wrongfully incarcerated for a teen’s 1997 murder before their exoneration in 2015. The case featured almost every hallmark of a wrongful conviction, including a confession ...
by David M. Reutter
Alabama’s Dallas County Jail (DCJ) has a “scheme” of releasing very ill detainees to avoid the cost of their medical care. That explosive allegation lay at the heart of a lawsuit filed on April 4, 2024, by the family of Mary Strong, who died just days ...
by David M. Reutter
On April 11, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found error in a lower court’s judgment for Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) officials in a lawsuit accusing them of infringing on prisoner Eric Demond Lozano’s ability to practice his religion.
As ...
by David M. Reutter
On September 30, 2024, the federal court for the District of Oregon sanctioned private prison and jail medical contractor Wellpath, LLC for destroying evidence in a suit filed over a detainee death at the Josephine County Jail (JCJ). It was the second time in just over ...
by David M. Reutter
Sheriff Chad K. Nichols (R) of Georgia’s Rabun County was sentenced on September 13, 2024, to five years of probation and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty to violation of oath by a public officer. That followed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated dismissal of a Wisconsin prisoner’s civil rights action for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. Defendant state Department of Corrections (DOC) officials ...
