A man held in solitary confinement for two years and forced to pull his own tooth because he was denied dental care has been awarded $22million for violation of his constitutional rights.
Stephen Slevin, 58, from New Mexico, was given the payout after accusing Dona Ana County jail of essentially forgetting about him after he was arrested for driving while intoxicated, not giving him the healthcare he needed and treating him inhumanely.
The settlement is one of the largest federal civil rights awards in history involving an inmate
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Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
Well, apparently this guy got lost in the system, (his mental illness undoubtedly contributed to that)
But it raises kind of an interesting question...
Would you be willing to go to prison for two years if at the end of it, you would be rewarded with 22 million dollars?
I think I probably would....
I would miss terribly the two years I could spend with my children that I could never get back, but I would try to stay focused on how much I could do for them by making just a two year sacrifice...
What happened to that man is a horrific violation of civil rights and a terrible failing of our criminal justice system. When you are dealing with powerful state entities who are largely immune from prosecution, the only way to send a message that promotes positive change is by financial incentive.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
'Prison officials were walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate. Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help.'
Sounds to me a little more about "getting lost in the system".
The CO's (at least under CA law) had the duty to oversee those in their charge and make sure that said charge received necessary medical treatment, for chrysakes!
The New Mexico Dept of Corrections (or whaterver the fcuk they're called) needs to be called on the carpet for this outrage.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
The only way to send an appropriate message is to enrich him and his lawyers to the tune of $22 million, with all of the money coming out of the pockets of innocent New Mexico taxpayers and the state's insurance carrier.
Perhaps the "innocent" taxpayers of New Mexico will think better of who they put in charge of operating their prisons if they understand that a bad decision will cost them.
ETA - to clarify, the punitive damages were assessed solely against the personnel in charge, not the detention centre or the county.
Last edited by Scooter on Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Hang on while I log in to the James Webb telescope to search the known universe for who the fuck asked you." -- James Fell
The compensatory damages works out to $1,000 an hour for his incarceration; is that somehow too much to be awarded for undergoing the torment he went through without ever even being convicted of anything??? He was imprisoned nearly two years -- much of it, apparently, in solitary confinement -- on a DUI and stolen auto charge that was never even proved. Even if he were guilty, I doubt that even New Mexico imposes sentences that harsh.
He's never going to collect the punitive damages award -- there's simply no source of recovery. And the county will undoubtedly appeal the compensatory award. It will probably be settled on appeal for a fraction of the verdict.
DUring my brief work in the local Juvenile Justice system, I noted that the boys who were the biggest problems at the detention center were the ones who were innocent. They got into fights, gave the "Child Care Workers" a hard time, and were generally disagreeable all the time.
No wonder.
The ones who were budding career criminals got along just fine.
Certainly this guy deserves some compensation - I'd say about twice what he could have earned if he had been gainfully employed while he was locked up. Making him a wealthy person is simply perverse.
Whether that will be the actual result is questionable, indeed, under the circumstances.
