By Jamie Satterfield
The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.
Taxpayers across the state, including in East Tennessee, have paid the price for their leaders’ refusal to spend the money necessary to humanely house people accused of crimes.
Knox County has been under a federal court order for two decades that cost taxpayers legal bills and fines and forced construction of a new jail to the tune of more than $60 million and growing.
Sevier County’s jail also came years after it was proposed and with the cost of a federal lawsuit -- and suffering by inmates -- added on top. Few new jails in East Tennessee were built until inmates turned to federal courts for help.
That trend of using the courts to force political leaders to take action voters find unpalatable is again on the rise in U.S. District Court in Knoxville. This time, though, inmates are dying.
Inmates dying, lawsuits mounting
Wrongful death lawsuits are pending in federal court against a growing number of East Tennessee counties, including Cocke, Sevier and Scott counties. The Cocke County Jail has been stripped of its certification in part because of its failure to medically care for inmates after two years of failed inspections. Scott County has been repeatedly threatened with losing its certification.
Losing certification costs taxpayers money. Defending the lawsuits does, too, and the loss of certification can be used as evidence against local leaders in those lawsuits.
Cocke County Sheriff Armando Fontes tried to warn members of the Cocke County Commission, which holds his purse strings, of the rising costs of commissioners’ refusal to fund his proposals for improving jail conditions. But so few showed up at a September committee meeting, records show they couldn’t even sanction it as an official meeting for lack of a quorum.
Fontes did not respond to USA TODAY NETWORK -Tennessee’s request for comment. Neither did Cocke County Mayor Crystal Ottinger.
No regulatory control over medical care
Unlike prisons, the lion’s share of inmates being housed in local jails haven’t been convicted of the crimes of which they are accused. Many are too poor to post bond.
A recent USA TODAY NETWORK -- Tennessee investigation of the lawsuits in Scott County showed there is no regulatory oversight over the quality of medical care provided inmates in local jails.
The Tennessee Corrections Institute only has authority to check medical records and medical equipment. The regulatory board has no inspectors with medical training. The board’s only weapon for enforcement of its standards is yanking certification. It cannot order a jail closed -- even if the conditions are being blamed for killing inmates.
The state Department of Health also has confirmed it has no regulatory authority over the quality of medical care for jail inmates.
In 1986, jails in East Tennessee were nasty, crowded and dangerous. Inmates slept on the floor, where toilets often overflowed. Cramped quarters caused fights and attacks on inmates and guards. Medical problems were ignored.
County governments refused to act. Leaders made no bones about it in public comments -- they were not going to raise property taxes to build jails because the voters didn’t like it.
Penny-wise, pound-foolish, history shows
A Knox County inmate turned to veteran attorney John Eldridge and University of Tennessee law professor Dean Hill Rivkin for help. Other inmates from other counties would also reach out to Eldridge.
Eldridge took their cases to federal court, alleging their constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment was being violated by the conditions in local jails. He found a friendly ear in the late U.S. District Judge James “Jimmy” Jarvis and federal law.
“He stepped in with both feet,” Eldridge said of Jarvis.
Jarvis’ handling of the Knox County case -- in which he popped county leaders with $5,000 daily fines and hauled them into court for updates on efforts to build a new jail -- spurred construction of new facilities in other counties that had been on the back burner.
“What’s unconstitutional is not having too many people (locked up),” Eldridge said. “What’s unconstitutional is the fallout from having too many people -- violence, less medical attention, less food ... There’s not enough guards to care for too many people.”
Even now, Knox County’s downtown jail is under a federally-imposed cap of 215 inmates. The facilities constructed because of the lawsuit -- the Roger D. Wilson Detention Facility and a work release center on Maloneyville Road -- are not under a court-ordered cap but have been exceeding bed capacity of 1,156 for more than a year, according to inmate counts reviewed by USA TODAY NETWORK -- Tennessee.
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(c)2017 the Knoxville News-Sentinel (Knoxville, Tenn.)