$7.25 Million Paid for Psychotic Detainee’s Suicide After 20 Days in Solitary at Indiana Jail
On May 28, 2024, remaining claims were dismissed in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana by the Estate of Joshua McLemore, a psychotic Jackson County Jail detainee who starved himself to death following his July 2021 arrest, losing 45 pounds in less than three weeks at the lockup, all spent in solitary confinement. The dismissal came after the Estate reached an undocumented settlement with the Jail’s medical provider, Advanced Correctional Healthcare (ACH), in March 2024, and a $7.25 million settlement with the County and Sheriff Rick Myer in December 2023—believed to be the largest payout ever for a jail death in the state.
McLemore, 29, was suffering an acute psychotic episode when Myer’s deputies arrested him at Schneck Medical Center, where they had taken him after a welfare check at his home. When he arrived at the jail, where staff was familiar with him and his history of mental illness, according to the complaint filed on his behalf, he was placed naked in a padded isolation cell with no windows. Over the next 20 days, he slept maybe 15 hours total, according to an investigation by State Police, who reviewed jail surveillance video showing McLemore “staring into space” or “rolling around in trash, smearing his feces, eating paper” and “chewing Styrofoam,” among a list of “erratic and peculiar behaviors” recalled in the complaint.
An autopsy blamed his death on “[m]ultiple organ failure due to refusal to eat or drink with altered mental status due to schizophrenia.” Even the County’s then-Prosecuting Attorney, Jeffrey Chalfant, agreed that “McLemore most likely died due to a prolonged lack of attention by Jackson County Jail staff as a group.”
Represented by attorneys from Budge & Heipt PLLC in Seattle, McLemore’s aunt, Melita Ladner, filed suit in the Court on behalf of his Estate in April 2023, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, May 24, 2023, online.] County Defendants then reached their settlement agreement, followed by the one with ACH. Ladner said she wanted the payouts to serve as a “wake-up call” for jailers everywhere. One of her attorneys, Ed Budge, agreed that McLemore was subjected to a “level of indifference and inhumanity that should never be tolerated in a modern jail.” See: Est. of McLemore v. Jackson Cty., USDC (S.D. Ind.), Case No. 4:23-cv-00057.
Of course, nothing makes it more likely that this will continue than letting ACH and other private jail healthcare contractors keep details under wraps when they settle such cases. But even when settlement details leak out, it hasn’t stopped ACH from growing its business, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Oct. 2024, p.15.]
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