Trial to begin in inmate’s suit against county jail
Complaint alleges prisoner forced to sleep without mattress.
The civil rights trial of a former Montgomery County Jail inmate forced to sleep for four months without a mattress or blanket is scheduled to begin this morning in Dayton’s U.S. District Court.
The civil lawsuit is the first of several filed against jail staff in recent years for alleged abuse and/ or neglect to go to trial. Four other cases have settled for $888,000 plus the county spent another $444,000 on outside legal counsel and litigation costs, according to county records. Other cases are pending.
Court documents show that both plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys agree that David O. Cooper, 35, had a history of mental illness and tried to harm himself several times during his jail stay in 2012.
The documents show both sides stipulated that remaining Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office individual defendants Major Darryl Wilson and Capt. Chuck Crosby “took steps they deemed necessary” to stop Cooper from harming himself.
That included taking away Cooper’s mattress and blanket for part of his time of incarceration, so that Cooper had to sleep on the floor, according to court documents.
The sheriff ’s office has refused to comment about pending litigation and has not made individual defendants available to be interviewed. Court documents show the county argues that Cooper’s incarceration conditions do not rise to liability.
Mediation efforts did not result in a settlement of the case filed in 2013. The trial is scheduled to last about five days in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge
Walter Rice.
Various counts were dismissed before trial, but the surviving count is an alleged 14th Amendment due process rights violation because Cooper was “deprived of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities” while he was in the Montgomery County Jail, according to the lawsuit.
In his original complaint, Cooper alleged he was held in the jail in a 13-person cell despite psychological disorders that made him feel suicidal in a small, crowded place.
The complaint said Cooper was denied in his effort to be moved to a mental health unit. Cooper alleged that after one other inmate was found concealing medication in his mouth, all the inmates’ medications were discontinued.
The complaint said Cooper tried to kill himself by cutting arteries in his arm. After returning from the hospital, Cooper was returned to another 13-person cell and then used a metal clip in his ID armband to cut himself again, according to court documents.
The complaint said that after a stay in a psychiatric hospital, he was returned to the jail where he allegedly was clothed in just a gown on “suicide watch” and (was) without bedding. Cooper alleged the air conditioning was cold, the lights were bright and there was constant noise.
Cooper’s attorneys also alleged their client was fed a bologna sandwich and two cookies three times a day for 2½ months. The complaint also alleged Cooper was Taser-darted, pepper-sprayed and beaten up.
In a ruling overruling the defendants’ motion for reconsideration, Rice wrote “Wilson’s testimony that suicidal inmates are often deprived of mattresses, a reasonable jury could find that Montgomery County had an unwritten policy, custom or practice that was the driving force behind the alleged constitutional violation.”