Reply #7: Michigan, too (link): [View All]

[meganmonkey]

JEFF GERRITT: Inmates in custody
Inmates die when state corrections officials don't learn from mistakes

September 22, 2006

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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.

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http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060922/OPINION02/609220353/1070/OPINION