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Alabama Department of Corrections
Dec 10, 2016 correctionsone.com
Officials said inmates are never denied medical care or medication
because of the cost
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The chief psychiatrist for Alabama prisons testified
that inmates are screened for mental illness, given a treatment plan if
they are ill and provided needed medication regardless of cost. Dr. Robert
Hunter, medical director for MHM Alabama, took the witness stand for the
third day today in a federal non-jury trial over the quality of mental
health care in Alabama prisons. Inmates and their advocates claim in the
class-action lawsuit that a failure to provide adequate mental health care
violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The
Department of Corrections disputes the allegations. Today was the fourth
day of the trial in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson.
The case, expected to last about eight weeks, is moving slower than
expected, Thompson told the lawyers this morning. MHM Alabama, part of MHM
Services, has provided mental health care in prisons under contract with
the Department of Corrections since 2001. The inmates, represented by the
Southern Poverty Law Center and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program,
called MHM's Hunter as a witness. Today, lawyers defending DOC officials
cross-examined Hunter. Hunter described how inmates are evaluated for
mental health problems when they enter the prison system. He said inmates
who are identified as mentally ill receive a treatment plan that can
include one-on-one counseling, group counseling and medication. Hunter said
medication is generally prescribed to inmates when a psychiatrist or nurse
practitioner determines their ability to function is impaired. Hunter said
inmates are never denied medication because of the cost. Bill Lunsford, a
lawyer with Maynard Cooper & Gale who is defending DOC officials, said
Hunter's testimony countered the plaintiffs' claims that cost-cutting is a
factor in care. "What Dr. Hunter has pointed out is that cost is
really not a consideration when it comes to mental health care,"
Lunsford said. "That when they decide, for example, which patients
receive which medications, that contrary to what's been publicized, it's
just simply not true that cost is being taken into consideration." The
lawsuit alleges that MHM's staff is too small and lacks the expertise to
provide sufficient care, among other claims. SPLC attorney Maria Morris
said some of the documented interactions between mental health staff and
inmates might be more for the purpose of "checking boxes" than
substantive treatment. Morris said a shortage of security staff, which DOC
acknowledges, is a factor in what she said is substandard care. For
example, she said group counseling opportunities are curtailed. "We'll
be putting on evidence of places where group counseling, to the extent that
it's scheduled at all, which is very limited, is cancelled because there's
no custody officer available to provide security," Morris said. The
plaintiffs had called two inmates as witnesses on Monday. After Hunter's
testimony this afternoon, they called another inmate to testify. That
inmate is expected to return to the stand on Friday morning.
December 1, 2009 Huntsville Times
State prison officials today released a 795-page report showing Farron Barksdale, who killed two police officers, died
from hypothermia after being heavily medicated with anti-psychotic drugs.
Barksdale, 32, of Athens, sentenced to life without parole after pleading
guilty to capital murder in the shooting deaths of two Athens police
officers, died Aug. 20, 2007, after he was found unconscious in his prison
cell. After he was rushed to a Montgomery hospital, it was discovered he
had several large, fresh-looking, bruises around his waist, arms, legs,
elbows and knees. But Sarah Geraghty, senior
attorney for the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said
questions still remain about how Barksdale received such extensive
bruising. The report said Barksdale was given several different drugs that
could cause bruising. And they noted the special seat belts used to
transport Barksdale from the Limestone County Jail to the Kilby Correctional Facility could also have been
responsible for some of the bruises. When a private ambulance company was
summoned to take Barkdale to the hospital after
he collapsed, according to the report, paramedic Angela Anderson said she
"found patient lying on treatment table by himself with distressed
respirations, unresponsive; no medical personnel in room; saw bruises on
his body on abdominal and pelvic area; noted they were unusual for size and
location . . . "Patient had no oxygen therapy being (administered and)
there was no medical personnel in the room (with) the patient the entire
time while on scene only DOC personnel. Patient had several bruises
throughout body major-sized bruises noted anterior on lower abdomen/pelvic
area measuring in comparison to a salad plate covering most of the area
from hip joint area to umbilicus. "Color of bruises indicate
newly sustained. Patient also had bruising to both forearms posterior area
in same color as ones noted to abdomen/pelvic area." In addition,
Heath Bruner, an EMT, was quoted in the report as noting
"massive" bruising on both sides of pelvis. He also noted there
were no nurses present in the room with Barksdale at Kilby.
Barksdale's mother, Mary, earlier this year won $750,000 in a wrongful
death lawsuit against former Kilby Warden Arnold
Holt, Dr. Joseph McGinn of MHM Correctional
Services in Vienna, Va., and Dr. Arnold Holt of Prison Health Services of
Brentwood, Tenn. Ken Williams, general counsel for the Corrections
Department, said Tuesday that McGinn was responsible
for prescribing the drugs to Barksdale and leaving him in an unairconditioned cell rather than transferring him to
an air-conditioned mental health unit.
September 24, 2009 Huntsville Times
The mother of an inmate who died a few days after entering a state prison
was awarded $750,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit against prison officials
and a mental health provider. The money was awarded to Mary Barksdale, the
mother of Farron Barksdale, 32, of Athens who
died Aug. 20, 2007, after he was found unconscious in his Kilby Prison cell. "We reached what we believed to
be a fair settlement in light of what we knew of the troubling
circumstances surrounding Mr. Barksdale's demise while in state custody,"
Sarah Geraghty, senior attorney for the
Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, said Wednesday. "Some
facts surrounding the death, however, remain a mystery to this day due to
the department's policy against releasing records on deaths in custody."
Jake Watson, a Huntsville attorney who also represented Mary Barksdale,
said Wednesday, "In light of all the circumstances, I think that was
the best settlement." The state Department of Corrections was not a
defendant in the case. According to the settlement agreement filed in U.S.
District Court in Montgomery, former Kilby Warden
Arnold Holt was ordered to pay $300,000 to the settlement, Dr. Joseph McGinn of MHM Correctional Services in Vienna, Va., was
to contribute $370,000, and Dr. Arnold Holt of Prison
Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn., was to pay $80,000. MHM provides
mental health services for the Department of Corrections. The suit alleged
that Barksdale, who suffered from schizophrenia, died because of "the
deliberate indifference, medical neglect and negligence" of the prison
staff.
September 23, 2009 Huntsville Times
A wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of an inmate who died just 12
days after entering prison has been settled with the state Department of Corrections,
her lawyers said Tuesday. Though the terms were not disclosed, the
settlement was also confirmed by state prison Commissioner Richard Allen.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery on behalf of Mary
Barksdale, the mother of Farron Barksdale, 32, of
Athens, who died Aug. 20, 2007, after he was found unconscious in his Kilby Prison cell. Barksdale, who pleaded guilty to
capital murder in the shooting death of two Athens police officers, had
been transferred to the prison just three days earlier to begin serving a
sentence of life without parole. Mary Barksdale, who could not be reached
for comment Tuesday, was represented by Sarah Geraghty,
an attorney for the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, and
Huntsville attorney Jake Watson. Geraghty and
Watson confirmed that Mary Barksdale was awarded a cash settlement, but
they would not disclose the amount. The defendants in the suit were former Kilby Warden Arnold Hold, Drs. Michael Robbins and
Joseph McGinn, two unnamed correctional officers,
an unnamed medical worker and Vienna, Va., based MHM Correctional Services.
MHM provides mental health services for the Department of Corrections. The
suit alleged that Barksdale, who suffered from schizophrenia, died because
of "the deliberate indifference, medical neglect and negligence"
of the prison staff. "Mr. Barksdale was medicated with an unusually
large dose of psychotropic medications that made his body unable to
withstand high temperatures, confined to an isolation cell with a medically
dangerous degree of heat and left there without adequate monitoring,"
the complaint said. "He fell into a coma and died." The complaint
said Barksdale was not placed in Kilby's mental
health unit, which is air-conditioned. On the day he was found unresponsive
in his cell, the temperature in Montgomery was 106 degrees. Kilby is located just east of Montgomery. On that day,
the complaint said, correctional officers found Barksdale in a coma,
"snoring and moaning," with a temperature of 103.1 degrees. He
was taken to the hospital but never regained consciousness after eight
days. An autopsy said he died of pneumonia and complications from
hypothermia and a blood-clotting problem, and that bruises on his upper
body and hip did not contribute to his death. A state prison inmate later
wrote in an Oct. 24, 2008, letter to Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eugene
Reese that Barksdale was severely beaten by four prison guards. Allen asked
the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Corrections' Department
of Investigations and Intelligence to reopen the investigation into
Barksdale's death, but the results of that probe have never been released.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Department of Corrections
must comply with the state's Open Records law and make records available on
crimes committed within prisons. The Southern Center for Human Rights had
sued over that issue. Despite the high court's 5-0 ruling, Allen said
Friday state attorneys may ask for a rehearing.
Florida
Department of Corrections, Tallahassee, Florida
July
28, 2009 Miami Herald
A state hearing officer has ruled in favor of the Department of
Corrections in a controversy involving an $80-million contract to provide
mental health to South Florida inmates. Administrative Law Judge Suzanne
Hood's 39-page decision concluded that the losing bidder, MHM Correctional
Services, failed to prove that the prison system violated the law in
awarding a five-year-contract to a rival, Correctional Medical Services.
The decision was a setback to MHM and its legal team at Foley &
Lardner, led by Chris Kise, a former legal
advisor to Gov. Charlie Crist. "I am
saddened, as costs will go up and quality of care will go down, but not
entirely surprised by the order as the judge does not appear to get
it," Kise said in an e-mail message to The
News Service of Florida. Kise's administrative
challenge included explosive allegations that prison officials negotiated
in secret with CMS in violation of the public records laws that his
ex-boss, Crist, has championed as governor.
"MHM has not met its burden of persuasion in this case," Judge
Hood wrote. In addition, she concluded, MHM failed to prove that its
proposal met the state's criteria for financial viability (The prison
system had rejected MHM's proposal on financial grounds).
June 26, 2009 St Petersburg Times
An ''appalled'' state judge said Thursday that Florida's prison system
''blatantly violated the public trust'' by secretly negotiating with a new
firm to provide for inmates' mental health. Leon County Circuit Judge Frank
Sheffield said the actions of the Department of Corrections in its secret
dealings with Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis were ``at best,
offensive, and at worst, illegal.'' But the judge denied the request by MHM
Correctional Services for a temporary injunction. MHM wanted to block the
award of a five-year contract to CMS through a 120-day purchase order that
starts July 1. The judge said MHM still has legal remedies because it has a
bid protest pending before a state hearing officer. He added that the
public interest would not be served by an injunction because MHM's contract
with the prison system expires June 30. To prevent the state from doing
business with CMS ''would cause confusion, disorder and produce public
injury that outweighs the individual right to the relief sought,'' the
judge wrote in a seven-page order. Last February, the state received four
proposals for mental health services for 18,000 inmates in the region from
Homestead to Fort Pierce. Many of those inmates have serious mental
disorders and receive psychotropic drugs. The prison system determined that
all four companies failed to meet its criteria, then began secret
negotiations with CMS, even though its offer was $5 million higher than
MHM's, the judge wrote. Sheffield was particularly critical of a decision
by the state to back-date an official document by 13 days that set the CMS
purchase order in motion, and then 'engaging in an old-fashioned shell game
of calling a short-term contract with the same company as is currently
involved in a bid dispute a `purchase order.' '' MHM attorney Chris Kise, a former legal advisor to Gov. Charlie Crist, said: `The people lost today due to the worst
abuse of power imaginable. The department engaged in secret negotiations,
blatant violations of the public trust and unconscionable practices, then
hid behind the very laws designed to protect the people.''
June 22, 2009 News Service of Florida
A high-stakes battle over multi-million dollar contracts with the Department
of Corrections took an ugly turn on Monday. Lawyers representing MHM
Correctional Services Inc. alleged in a court filing that a high-ranking
DOC official may have been negotiating to get a job for a friend from
Correctional Medical Services at the same time he recommended that the
agency hire CMS. Ken Fields, a spokesman for CMS, said the allegation was
simply a ploy intended to get media coverage. “This latest allegation is
nothing more than a desperate PR stunt that is completely baseless,"
said Fields in an e-mail. CMS was chosen back in April to provide mental
health services to South Florida prison inmates. But current vendor MHM has
contested the bid, saying the department broke contracting and public
records laws by negotiating with CMS in secret before announcing the St.
Louis based company had won a contract worth more than $80 million over the
next five years. MHM has also filed a separate lawsuit against the
Department of Corrections after finding out that the agency planned to
bring on CMS on July 1 when the current contract with MHM expires. Leon
County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield is expected to rule this week on
whether to block the $6 million four-month purchase order the department
approved in late May. Chris Kise, an attorney
with Foley & Lardner LLP, filed a motion in circuit court on Monday
that suggests that one reason CMS won the 4-month contract is because Dr. Sandeep Rahangdale, deputy
secretary for health services, was trying to land a job for a friend with
CMS. Kise attached e-mails that show that Rahangdale asked CMS officials to send information to
his personal e-mail account about salary range and requirements for a
position. He states “I think I have the perfect fit for you and the
state" in the e-mail. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections
would not answer the allegation about Rahangdale,
who makes $172,500 in his job with the agency. Rahangdale
has been deputy secretary since Jan. 31, 2008. But Fields, the spokesman
for CMS, said that Kise and his legal team have
been in possession of the Rahangdale e-mail for
weeks. "Until now and because they seek to avoid legal challenge, they
have never raised this false allegation in any hearing related to this
injunction or in their bid protest,’’ said Fields. “Instead they have
chosen to wait until the hearings are concluded and to make the assertion
in the media."
June 18, 2009 St Petersburg Times
A state judge is ordering two prison officials to testify today on
their role in a disputed decision to switch vendors for mental health care
to inmates in South Florida. "I direct that they appear," Leon
County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield said at a hearing Thursday. The judge
ordered the two employees, Millie Seay and Jimmy
Smith, to testify in a lawsuit brought by a company that has been fired by
the Department of Corrections. The firm, MHM Correctional Services of
Virginia, is seeking to block the state from replacing it with Correctional
Medical Services of St. Louis, at what MHM says is $5 million more. The
lawsuit sheds light on the intense competition among firms to secure
lucrative contracts with agencies in Gov. Charlie Crist's
administration. As the judge noted Thursday, "There's a lot of money
at stake, and we have time frames imposed of July 1." MHM attorney
Christopher Kise accused the prison system of
flagrant violations of state purchasing and open meeting laws, "a
rigging of the process" and a waste of taxpayers' money in switching
vendors. He argued that MHM's lawsuit should stay, or prevent, the state
from hiring CMS on July 1 for a 120-day period under a special purchase
order while the vendor makes the transition as mental health provider.
Attorneys for CMS, which was allowed to intervene in the lawsuit Thursday,
told the judge a fast decision is needed because the firm needs to start
its work. CMS attorney Peter Antonacci called the
120-day transition period a contractual "patch" not subject to
the state's purchasing laws. Seay is director of
administration for the Department of Corrections, and Smith is assistant
program administrator for health services.
June 11, 2009 Miami Herald
A judge in Tallahassee ruled Wednesday that the Florida Department of
Corrections improperly withheld public records from a vendor that filed a
lawsuit after being ousted from a mental healthcare contract. The ruling is
a victory for MHM Correctional Services, which wants to extend its 2 ˝-year
contract to provide services to more than 15,000 inmates in a dozen South
Florida prisons. But it is a defeat for Attorney General Bill McCollum,
whose office asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and argued that the
Sunshine Law does not apply to purchasing committees, only boards and
commissions. The DOC wants to replace MHM with Correctional Medical
Services of St. Louis, even though that company would charge $5.5 million
more for the same service over five years. MHM sued to stop the deal and
argued that the state violated the Sunshine Law by omitting some e-mails
related to the case. ''The court has conducted an in-camera inspection of
the document containing the e-mail stream and has determined that it is not
exempt under the provisions of Chapter 119,'' Circuit Judge Kevin Davey
wrote Wednesday. "It does not appear that any of the communications in
the stream were made in contemplation of litigation, which is required for
the exemption.'' The bid protest is scheduled before a state hearing
officer on Friday.
June 1, 2009 St Petersburg Times
A vendor on the verge of losing a contract to provide mental health
services to 15,000 South Florida prison inmates is fighting back. Last
week, MHM Correctional Services filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of
Corrections of violating the Sunshine Law by holding unadvertised meetings
to negotiate a more expensive multi-year contract with another vendor,
Correctional Medical Services (CMS). Now MHM wants a Leon County judge to
prevent the agency from going forward. In court papers, MHM's attorney says
one of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil's top aides, Director of
Administrator Millie Seay, refused to sign an
exception document that allowed DOC to issue an interim purchase order
until a formal contract can be executed -- a very big red flag from MHM's
viewpoint. Quoting a May 22 email from DOC's procurement chief Robert Staney to his staff, the motion for injunction states:
"Millie Seay is reluctant to sign the waiver
at this time." "This fact alone should have stopped the
procurement process," the motion states. On a related front, MHM has
enlisted the lobbying firm of Smith & Ballard, which has entree to the
highest levels of the governor's office. At the center of this contract
fight is MHM's attorney, Chris Kise of Foley
& Lardner's Tallahassee office, who served as counselor to Gov. Charlie
Crist in the first year of his term and was a top
adviser to Crist as attorney general.
May 27, 2009 St Petersburg Times
Gov. Charlie Crist has made it a priority to run
the "most open and transparent" administration in state history.
But a former adviser to Crist is suing the state,
claiming the Department of Corrections broke the Sunshine Law by
mishandling a contract to provide mental health services to inmates.
Attorney Chris Kise of Foley & Lardner, who
served as a counselor and climate change advisor to Crist,
filed the suit in state court in Tallahassee Tuesday on behalf of MHM
Correctional Services, a Virginia firm that pitched a proposal to provide
mental health care in the agency's South Florida Region IV prisons. Kise's suit alleges that he obtained public records
showing that agency staffers began "secret negotiations" with a
competing vendor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS),
almost two weeks before competing vendors learned that their proposals were
rejected. Kise also said the deal the state
negotiated with CMS would cost taxpayers $5.5-million more than MHM's
proposal. Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil said he was confident the
agency would prevail. We are fully confident that we didn't do anything
that would be a problem to the state," he said. "I think the
facts will bear that out to be not true." By law, McNeil said, he
can't discuss the details of a contract that is "still in the throes
of procurement."
MHM
Correctional Services
January 14, 2011 News Observer
Three out-of-state companies are jockeying for a potentially lucrative
state contract to house and care for people with mental illness accused of
crimes that include murder. Facing massive budget cuts, the state
Department of Health and Human Services last month issued a "request
for information" seeking private firms interested in operating a
facility for about 90 forensic patients. Some of those patients are housed
at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh, which is set to close. The patients
include those facing charges or found not guilty by reason of insanity for
offenses ranging from first-degree murder to misdemeanor trespassing. Staff
members at Dix also provide the psychiatric evaluations that help determine
whether an accused person exhibiting signs of mental illness is competent
to stand trial, a responsibility that could now be entrusted to a private
contractor. District attorneys and disability advocates have expressed
serious reservations about the plan, citing the sensitivity of the job and
the state's checkered history of privatizations with mental health care and
prisons. A DHHS spokeswoman this week disclosed the names of three firms
that have filed proposals: The GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.; MHM Services
of Vienna, Va., and Liberty Healthcare of Bala Cynwyd, Pa. Records show that all three companies have
hired well-known Raleigh-based lobbyists to help them get the contract,
which is potentially worth millions of dollars: ♦Since 2009, GEO has
been represented by Franklin Freeman at McGuireWoods.
Freeman previously served as a secretary of correction, an associate
justice on the N.C. Supreme Court and senior staffer to Govs. Jim Hunt and
Mike Easley. ♦MHM Services hired lobbyist Mark Beason
in 2008. Beason, along with his father Don Beason, were fined for lobbying violations last year.
Once considered among the state's most powerful lobbyists, Don Beason left the profession because of his entanglements
with disgraced House Speaker Jim Black, who pleaded guilty to federal
corruption charges. ♦Liberty Healthcare hired George M. Teague, a law
partner at Nelson Mullins and longtime lobbyist for insurance companies and
bankers. The News & Observer reported in May that Lanier Cansler, the DHHS secretary who was a lobbyist, had
been meeting with lobbyists for at least three companies interested in
taking over chunks of the state's mental health system, including the care
of those in the forensic unit.
State Correctional Institution, Dallas, Dallas,
Pennsylvania
February
25, 2010 Times Leader
The parents of a convicted murderer who committed suicide at the state
Correctional Institution at Dallas have filed a wrongful death lawsuit
against prison officials, 10 guards, two companies that provide prison
health services and state Department of Corrections officials. Among the
allegations in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Robert and Phyllis Bullock, of
Dallas, is that corrections officers taunted their son, Matthew Lee
Bullock, provided the means to commit suicide – a bed sheet he used to hang
himself – and encouraged him to do so. A Luzerne County jury found Bullock
guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill in the strangulation death
of 33-year-old Lisa Hargrave, who was 22 weeks
pregnant, in the couple’s Wilkes-Barre apartment on Jan. 1, 2003. The jury
also found Bullock guilty of involuntary manslaughter but mentally ill for
the death of the fetus. The lawsuit, filed in Luzerne County Court and
transferred on Wednesday to U.S. District Court, details Bullock’s
extensive mental health history, including 11 psychiatric disorders and
more than 20 documented suicide attempts in the 10 years prior to his
incarceration. Despite a court order that he was to be housed at a secure
mental health facility for the needed treatment period, Bullock was
confined in various state prisons, where he attempted suicide in May 2007,
January 2008 and May 2009, the suit states.
Bullock told staff at SCI Dallas on July 31, 2009 that he was “stressed”
because his victim was related to a prison employee and that he was hearing
voices, and he also cut the inside of his wrists on that date, the suit
states. Despite all that, Bullock’s psychiatric medication was decreased
and he was placed in a Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), which is not designed
for confinement and treatment of the mentally ill, the suit states.
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