Arizona Agrees to $40,000 Settlement in Suit Over Mentally Ill Prisoner’s Suicide
by Douglas Ankney
After a federal court found its provision of healthcare and mental health care to all state prisoners was “plainly, grossly inadequate,” Arizona settled a suit over one prisoner’s suicide on November 11, 2023. In the agreement, the state promised to pay $40,000 to Julie Georgatos to settle the suit she filed after her son, Austin Georgatos, killed himself while incarcerated at the Arizona State Prison Complex (ASPC) at Lewis.
Just two weeks after 20-year-Georgatos was confined on a dangerous drug violation, he was found dead in his cell on January 28, 2021. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner confirmed the cause of death was suicide by hanging. Two weeks may not seem like a long time, but for those suffering mental illness, it is more than enough time to decompensate into self-harm. That’s what Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint alleged—that even though Georgatos had an active diagnosis of schizophrenia at the time of his death and a mental health history extending back more than half his life, he spent two weeks in custody of the state Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (DCRR) without undergoing any mental health examination at any facility.
Georgatos’ suicide was cited as an example of DCRR’s inadequate care by the federal court for the District of Arizona when it issued a permanent injunction in April 2023 at the climax of a years-long class-action suit, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Sep. 2023, p.63.] In Georgatos’ case, prior to entering DCRR and while still awaiting sentencing in the Maricopa County Jail System, the prisoner was maintained on antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed to him several months earlier at the John C. Lincoln hospital—medication that was abruptly discontinued without any clear medical authority after he was admitted to DCRR.
This abrupt break in his medication regimen was a significant contributor to Georgatos’ death, the complaint noted—an error compounded by the failure to place him in a Behavioral Health Unit, as required by DCRR policy. Defendants further failed to place Georgatos either in a “high visibility cell” or in a cell with a camera to monitor him. Finally, Defendants failed to monitor Georgatos at the required 30-minute intervals.
Citing the Court’s permanent injunction, Plaintiff moved for summary judgment, but the Court agreed on April 28, 2023, that its decision in the class-action was about global policies and procedures in DCRR, which did not relieve Plaintiff of the burden to prove allegations specific to Georgatos’s suicide. See: Georgatos v. Arizona, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74412 (D. Ariz.).
Still, Defendants could see the handwriting on the wall had little good to say about their mental health care, and they began negotiating the settlement. Under the agreement, the state’s $40,000 payment included fees and costs for Plaintiff’s attorneys, Douglas R. Zanes, Christopher A. Treadway and Jeffrey Sadler of Zane’s Law in Tucson. The agreement did not resolve Plaintiff’s claims against DCRR’s privately contracted medical provider, Centurion of Arizona, LLC. But when the parties notified the Court that they had reached their agreement, they also acknowledged a separate agreement reached with Centurion, the details of which were not disclosed. See: Georgatos v. Arizona, USDC (D. Ariz.), Case No. 2:22-cv-00803.
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login