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September 22, 2006
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For four months, Free Press editorial writer and columnist Jeff Gerritt has been examining the worsening state of health care in Michigan's prisons, which costs taxpayers $190 million a year. Misdiagnoses, delayed treatment and a host of other troubles plague the system, in some cases turning prison stays into death sentences. From a mentally ill 21-year-old who was left strapped to a table for most of four days before he died, to an inmate whose cancerous polyp was mistreated as a hemorrhoid and now, at 41, has less than a year to live, to a woman who had both lower legs amputated because doctors ignored her condition, Gerritt illuminated a health care system that has been far more punitive than the justice system itself. To read previous coverage, go to freep.com. |
The Michigan Department of Corrections rightly expects the offenders it locks up to learn from their mistakes. Even so, the state doesn't always correct its most egregious errors, especially those made in the medical care and mental health treatment of Michigan's nearly 50,000 inmates. If it did, Timothy Joe Souders, and others, would probably still be alive.
Souders is the mentally ill inmate who, at 21, died last month after spending most of his last four days strapped down in a hot isolation cell, naked and soaked in his own urine. He was sent to the cell for unruly behavior and was serving a sentence of 1 to 4 years for petty theft, resisting arrest and brandishing a stolen knife at a police officer.
His death might not have occurred had the state made changes after a strikingly similar death four years ago of a mentally ill inmate at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia.
On July 4, 2002, inmate Jeffrey David Clark, serving 9 to 30 years for armed robbery, was found dead, after spending four days alone in a hot observation cell. According to a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, Clark, 39, "lay naked on the floor, in full rigor mortis, with eyes open and vomit encrusted on his mouth. The water to Clark's cell was turned off, and the toilet was dry."
When officers placed Clark in an observation cell on June 29, the ruling states, the prison was on a heat alert, and remained so until Clark died. Once in the cell, an officer observed Clark, who was mentally ill, screaming and barking like a dog. The water to the cell was turned off at least part of the time, and Clark was seen drinking from the toilet. A police detective investigating the cell after Clark died noted a pool of urine under Clark's mattress, uneaten food on the floor, and filth smeared over the cell window so that little could be seen through it. Still, Clark spent four days there alone, without care.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected MDOC's claims of qualified immunity for 11 of its employees named in the multi-million dollar suit that Geoffrey Fieger's law firm -- which also has taken on the Souders case -- will argue in federal court in January. Attorneys will try to prove that MDOC staff acted with deliberate indifference to Clark's health and safety. MDOC spokesman Russ Marlan said the department could not comment because of the upcoming trial.
In Souders' case, Fieger's law firm will file in the next week a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court, attorney Paul Broschay told me Wednesday. The Jackson County Medical Examiner still hasn't released an autopsy on the Aug. 6 death, but Souders most likely died of dehydration, perhaps complicated by arrhythmia, an irregular or abnormal heart rhythm. Whatever the medical examiner rules, this horrible and preventable death will probably also cost the state millions. An expert witness called it "death by torture."
Anyone who wants to make prison health care a partisan issue should note that Clark's death happened under former Gov. John Engler. Even so, the administration of Gov. Jennifer Granholm should have learned something from it. It ought to have improved medical and mental health care for inmates in segregation, more thoroughly monitored segregated prisoners, and directed prison custody staff to stop interfering, unnecessarily, with the medical care and mental health treatment of inmates.
Unfortunately, prison systems and police agencies tend -- not just here but anywhere -- to cover up mistakes instead of correct them. So far, MDOC has been in denial. It has turned down a Free Press request under the Freedom of Information Act for documents and records related to Souders' death, including a videotape of his last few hours that show him, court records report, staggering from the bed and trying to drink water from a toilet.
A lot of information about prisoner neglect will probably never see the light of day. Nor am I optimistic that the independent review of prison health care recently ordered by Granholm will be thorough and complete.
I'd bet big that serious mistakes were also made in the death of Anthony Mark McManus, a severely mentally ill inmate at Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula. McManus, 38, had practically starved to death in September of last year. He was serving a minimum 18-month sentence for indecent exposure, entering without breaking, and unlawfully driving an automobile.
According to an autopsy report, McManus had been sprayed with pepper spray two or three days before he died; he weighed 75 pounds at death.
Most of these cases receive little or no publicity -- so the department has felt little heat to reform.
Jeffrey David Clark, Anthony Mark McManus, Timothy Joe Souders -- all dead, and no one knows how many others there are like them. There will be more, too, unless the state does what it tells prisoners to do: acknowledge mistakes and work hard to correct them.
JEFF GERRITT is a Free Press editorial writer. Contact him at gerritt@freepress.com or 313-222-6585.
Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
