by Matt Clarke
On February 24, 2023, an Oklahoma federal jury awarded $14 million in compensatory damages and $68 million in punitive damages to the estate of a woman who died of a heart attack in the Tulsa County Jail, despite repeatedly requesting medical care to no avail.
Gwendolyn Young, 52, had serious medical and mental health conditions requiring prescribed medication plus regular monitoring and evaluation when she was booked into the jail on October 16, 2012. She suffered from diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, and she had a prior history of cardiovascular disease and strokes. Correctional Healthcare Companies (CHC) - now Wellpath - was under contract to provide healthcare to the jail’s detainees.
According to the complaint later filed on her behalf, Young repeatedly told jailers and CHC staff that she was experiencing nausea and vomiting, along with pain in her abdomen and lower back. But her complaints were ignored. Two hours before she died in a segregation cell, Young told jail staff she was vomiting blood. A jailer looked at the vomit and told her there was “not enough blood” – in fact he said it looked like Kool-Aid. Mere minutes before she expired, Young told a nurse she ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) held that its decision in Lynch v. Arizona, 578 U.S. 613 (2016), was a “significant change” in the law as that term is used in Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.1(g). The decision cleared the way for a death row prisoner to pursue state habeas corpus relief. In issuing it, the high court also put down an apparent rebellion by the Arizona Supreme Court (ASC).
Almost three decades ago, the Court held that capital juries must be advised when a defendant is ineligible for parole, in Simmons v. South Carolina, 512 U.S. 154 (1994). But the Arizona high court ignored that ruling. So in its 2016 decision in Lynch, the Court specifically said its earlier decision applied to Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme – overturning binding ASC precedent which consistently ignored what SCOTUS had ruled for almost 30 years. Incredibly, though, the Arizona high court remained stubbornly opposed.
John Montenegro Cruz was convicted of capital murder. The only aggravating factor found by the jury was that the victim was a police officer. The 1994 version of Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. Sec. 41-1604.09(I)(1) eliminated ...
by Matthew Clarke
We all know celebrities accused ofcrimes, including actors, musicians, sports figures, business leaders, politicians and journalists. If they’re prosecuted at all, the punishment is rarely harsh. The rich and famous simply aren’t treated like everyone else.
However, the rise of the #metoo movement has undermined celebrity privilege within the U.S. justice system somewhat. For crimes of sexual misconduct, the wealthy and famous increasingly are treated more like the rest of us – especially when the victims are underage.
Nevertheless, celebrities continue to enjoy deference in other criminal allegations, such as assault, money crimes or property crimes. Nor is the accusation of a sex crime sufficient to remove the privilege of celebrity in some cases.
What is Celebrity Privilege?
Privilege in the criminal justice system is often thought of in racial terms. Research has proven an inherent bias among police, prosecutors, judges, and juries, who give more credence to white defendants and treat them with greater deference and more leniency than people of color. To be fair, though, it’s difficult to tease out whether this bias is racial or wealth-based, since wealth distribution in the U.S. falls along racial lines.
But just as there is “white privilege” for ...
by Matthew Clarke
On September 30, 2022, a lawsuit was dismissed against Pennsylvania’s Dauphin County, after a former pretrial detainee at the county lockup reached a $142,500 settlement on claims that a jail guard knocked her unconscious and smashed her jaw while she was handcuffed.
Barbara Barngetuny, then 26, was detained at the Dauphin County Prison on November 10, 2017, when jail guard Joshua Marshall allegedly slammed her to the floor, breaking her jaw and two teeth and cutting her chin. When she then passed out – for 10 minutes – a second, unidentified guard pepper sprayed her twice as she lay unmoving on the floor, she said.
Afterward, Barngetuny said she was disciplined for being combative with placement in solitary confinement. There she was denied visits from her mother. She was also allegedly ridiculed by guards, who laughed at her when she cried. One said she cried worse than his two-year-old niece, Barngetuny recalled.
Her broken jaw required surgery, and her two broken teeth required repair. She also had to heal the cuts on her chin. In addition to those injuries, she claimed to suffer migraine headaches, PTSD, severe emotional distress and insomnia as a result of the assault. ...
by Matthew Clarke
On December 15, 2022, the U.S. Courtof Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a district court erred when it dismissed an Illinois prisoner’s lawsuit for misjoinder of defendants and claims. Finding the claims and defendants were in fact properly joined, the Court reinstated the prisoner’s complaint.
After he was admitted to the state Department of Corrections (DOC) in September 2017, Jermari C. Dorsey was injured on his prison job at Robinson Correctional Center, while emptying an industrial washing machine that was not attached to a drain. A supervising guard named Julius refused him permission to seek medical attention. When his pain worsened the next day, he submitted a request for medical care and waited.
When finally admitted to the healthcare unit six days later, his severe leg pain was duly noted by an unnamed “Doe” Nurse with the state prison system’s privately contracted healthcare provider, Wexford Health Sources. But Doe also recorded her belief that Dorsey was exaggerating his symptoms. Why? She allegedly observed him approach the waiting room walking normally, only to begin limping and moaning once he thought himself under observation. Dorsey later called that entry false, alleging also that it negatively influenced his ...
by Matthew Clark
On December 14, 2022, the Minnesota Supreme Court took up a state prisoner’s claim that he was left with permanent nerve damage from restraints guards misused during a routine medical transport. The Court held that the proper standard to apply is whether the allegations show deliberate indifference, not intent to cause harm.
Christopher Welters was being transported from the Minnesota Correctional Facility (MCF) at Stillwater to MCF Oak Park Heights for scheduled outpatient medical clinic appointments on July 31, 2017. Guards Cornelius Emily and Ernest Rhoney put him in full restraints for the trip, per policy of the state Department of Corrections (DOC). But Welters noticed right away that his handcuffs were too tight.
“Oh, it’s only a 15-minute drive,” Rhoney allegedly told him, “it’ll be all right.”
But it wasn’t “all right.” In fact, as Welters entered the transport van, he felt the restraints “click” even tighter – meaning the device was not double-locked, in violation of DOC policy. When he complained, Rhoney pushed on the handcuff to check, and it clicked tighter again. He agreed the device was not double-locked. But he did nothing to fix the problem.
By the time he arrived at the ...
by Matt Clarke
Just weeks before their trial was to begin on charges of involuntary manslaughter in a detainee’s death, four guards at Michigan’s Muskegon County Jail pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of Willful Neglect of Duty on
April 20, 2023.
That means Crystal Grove, Jamal Lane, Jeffery Patterson and David Vanderlaan will not face jail time; instead each was immediately fined $1,000 and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. All four are still employed at the lockup. A nurse formerly employed by Wellpath, the jail’s privately contracted healthcare provider, escaped charges earlier in the case.
Their victim, Paul Bulthouse, 39, died on April 4, 2019, after suffering what surveillance video showed to be 18 seizures in just over four hours. The first five seizures were fairly evenly spaced over two hours, while the last 13 came at intervals of about 15 minutes. All the while Bulthouse lay naked and unconscious on the bunk in his cell.
He had been arrested for probation violation on March 22, 2019, and taken to the jail. There he was placed on suicide watch, which requires guards to check on him every 15 minutes. But even though the guards could observe Bulthouse ...
by Matt Clarke
On February 23, 2023, a federal judge who had earlier refused to reduce the sentence of the former head of the New York City jail guards’ union convicted in a costly bribery scheme, instead granted compassionate release to Norman Seabrook, 63.
The former president of the city’s powerful Correctional Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA), Seabrook had by then served 21 months of his 58-month sentence. He remains subject to a three-year term of supervised release set in his original sentence.
Based largely on the testimony of real estate developer Jona Rechnitz, who served as bagman to deliver a $60,000 bribe, Seabrook was sentenced in February 2019 for taking the payoff to invest $20 million of COBA funds in a risky hedge fund that went bankrupt, resulting in a loss of $19 million from jail guards’ retirement accounts. [See: PLN, May 2019, p.46.]
In April 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York noted that Seabrook, who is Black, ended up with a harsher sentence than his White co-conspirator; defunct Platinum Partners co-founder Murray Huberfeld initially received a 30-month sentence for paying the bribe, but his sentence was reduced to 13 months, after the ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 11, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted a motion to withdraw from an attorney appointed to represent a federal prisoner in Missouri appealing his civil commitment. Though allowing the appeal was “frivolous,” the Court denied a companion motion to keep the withdrawal under seal, calling that request overbroad. The case is instructive for prisoners with reluctant appointed counsel, demonstrating the current limits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling governing their withdrawal in Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967).
The government petitioned to determine whether federal prisoner David Garner’s present mental condition justified involuntary commitment for psychiatric treatment, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4245(a). “After a hearing,” the Court recalled, “the district court ordered Garner committed to the custody of the Attorney General for treatment of a mental disease or defect at the Federal Medical Center in Springfield, Missouri.”
Garner filed a notice of appeal pro se, and the Eighth Circuit appointed counsel from the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Western District of Missouri. But that attorney said he was unable to find a non-frivolous issue for appeal, leaving him “ethically obligated to withdraw.” However, he moved ...
by Matt Clarke
On July 13, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed dismissal of a lawsuit filed over the death of a Texas detainee during an altercation with jail guards.
Kelli Leanne Page, 46, was awaiting trial at the Coryell County Jail for “several months” ...
