Suicide/homicide rates skyrocket at AZ Department of Corrections

I obtained prisoner death records last week from the AZ Department of Corrections, and the stats on suicides and homicides since Brewer took office are mind-boggling: they're twice the rate as they were when Janet was governor; this fiscal year (beginning July 2010) the suicides are on track for being three times the annual rate.

In no instance of the recent suicides has there been documentation that ADC staff had any culpability - though I've had more than one family member tell me that their mentally ill loved one had been taken off of their psychiatric medications in prisons before their suicide or homicide. That sounds to me like a pattern of institutional neglect.

Anthony Lester's death remains a mystery to me, by the way - the ADC record detailing his death lists his injuries as self-inflicted (his jugular, his right wrist, and his leg were all cut with a razor) , but a document compiling the deaths for the year calls it a homicide. Tony's family was told it was a suicide - a "highly preventable" one, which they tried to warn the ADC he was at risk for. They have other information suggesting that he believed he was in imminent danger from a gang, though. Until I get confirmation to the contrary, I'm leaving him in the suicide category.

Tony suffered from schizophrenia, and was sentenced to more than a decade in prison due to two women being slightly injured trying to prevent him from cutting his throat (both required band-aids at the scene) during a psychotic episode. He had to be restored to sanity before he could go on trial, of course. That's par for Maricopa County's treatment of people with mental illness who needed psychiatric hospitalization before or at the time of their "crime". If I could sick the DOJ on every responsible judge and prosecuting attorney, I would, because that's a violation of the Olmstead Decision, as far as I'm concerned. The Olmstead Decision was a Supreme Court verdict that determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to deinstitutionalize and place people with disabilities in the least restrictive setting possible.

Arizona, after 20 years of Arnold v. Sarn litigation, is still underserving the seriously mentally ill in the community. Here they're just criminally prosecuted for the symptoms of their illness and thrown into the most restrictive setting possible - state prison (often maximum security) - largely because the state lacks adequate outpatient and inpatient alternatives for individuals at risk of harming themselves or others (we spend it all on corrections instead. If ADC Director Ryan had any courage, he'd call that what it is and tell the state where to put their money and the courts where to stuff their convictions).

Why else would a judge give a man with schizophrenia three years for climbing a utility tower in a thunderstorm to be closer to God? Why would he even be prosecuted for that in the first place? I think they actually believed they were protecting him from himself. Sadly, Shannon Palmer ended up being murdered by his cellmate two years in.

The deaths by "natural causes" are also extremely young - go to the ADC's website, under ADC in the News, for death notices. There's an archive on that page, too. I suspect that it's complications from the effects of the Hep C virus that's killing people so young inside. I'll be analyzing the documents I obtained further to confirm that, and post it when I compile it all.

Here are the links for the APW posts about the more recent suicides:

Special Management Unit: Prisoner suicide at ASPC Eyman (11/4) - James Galloway

Prison suicide and gangs at Florence Central (10/01) - Duron Cunningham, Rosario Rodriguez-Bojorquez


Additionally, I missed a couple of suicides in my compilation that I didn't have info on until now:

Douglas Nunn 33 (8/29/09) - ASPC-Florence/Central

Patricia Velez 25 (4/28/10) - ASPC-Perryville/Lumley

All 3 of the women who have killed themselves in the past year and a half hung themselves and were housed in Lumley, where the maximum security yard is. All three were in their 20s. I don't know if Patricia had a mental illness or not: a psychological report was sealed by the court when she was sentenced to 7.5 years for aggravated assault and fleeing a law enforcement vehicle. Geshell and Sasha, the other two women from Lumley who killed themselves, did have evidence of a serious mental illness when sentenced.

Two of the men who killed themselves recently were both from ASPC-Florence/Central. The largest number of male suicides in any one prison have occurred at ASPC-Eyman, however.

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll break down the suicides and homicides by race and age, and tell you how they compare to stats for the overall prison population, as well as to rates in the general population. It seems to me that if all the violence boiled down to a gang war, the Aryan Brotherhood is winning.

Negligent Homicide of Marcia Powell

The Arizona State Personnel Board office is located at 1400 W. Washington St., Suite 280 Phoenix, AZ 85007-2939. As I posted previously, at their June meeting, with no discussion, on a motion from Joseph Smith, they reinstated Electra Allen to her previous position at Perryville, despite the ADC's decision to terminate her and their recommendation that she be criminally prosecuted. To their credit, they did not reinstate Iain Fenyves; Joseph Smith was the only member who didn't agree, however. He seems to be far more sympathetic to ADC employees than to the woman they killed.

Here is the additional contact information: I'm sure they will be hearing more ADC employee appeals. Before their September meeting, perhaps they should hear from Friends of Marcia Powell's and others in the community who are disturbed by these developments.

Phone: (602) 542-3888
Fax: (602) 542-3588
Email: judy.henkel@personnel.az.gov (executive director)

Additionally, it's my understanding that negligent homicide isn't just a crime in Maricopa County - it's a state and federal crime. If Romley (602-506-3411) won't make his people take responsibility, then we should pressure Goddard to. The Attorney General's office is at 1275 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ 85007 (602-542-5025). Make it clear that we expect leadership from him on getting justice for Marcia, be it in a courtroom or otherwise.

I looked into Arizona's victim's rights laws to see if the public can ever be considered a secondary victim of violence done by public employees in their official capacity. Apparently, under the Arizona Constitution, a person who is "in custody for an offense" is not considered a "victim" themselves, regardless of their vulnerability to neglect or abuse or the heinousness of the crime perpetrated against them. No wonder the perpetrators aren't treated as criminals.

In light of the horrendous abuses in our prisons and jails here, I have a real problem with people having no rights when victimized in custody, and plan to make it an issue while lobbying for "Marcia's Law", beginning tomorrow.

Finally, Donna Hamm's reference to getting the Justice Department to investigate is regarding the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). It takes years for them to get around to it; the more people who complain to them about abuses in the state prisons and our county jails, the better. They need to see a pattern of abuse, not just a single incident.

I periodically forward them packets to establish such patterns, as I suspect Middle Ground does. You can send them local news articles about prisoner abuse and neglect every time you find them, too, beginning now. An expression of public outrage directed to them, not just the blogs, would help, too. Get them familiar with the name of Marcia Powell.

US Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530

Telephone Number
(202) 514-0195
toll-free at (877) 218-5228

Fax Numbers
(202) 514-0212; (202) 514-6273

Acting Chief: Judy Preston
(202) 514-6258

Thank you.

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Marcia Powell Cage Death: County Attorney Releases ADC PowerPoint, Internal ADC Investigation Not Reviewed by CA

By Stephen Lemons, Tue., Sep. 7 2010 @ 10:11AM

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office did not review a 3,000 page internal Arizona Department of Corrections investigation into the 2009 cage death of Perryville Prison inmate Marcia Powell.

The County Attorney's office last week declined to prosecute anyone involved in Powell's heat-related death. The ADC had asked for charges of negligent homicide to be brought against seven corrections officers on duty May 19, 2009, the day Powell was kept in an outside enclosure for four hours in 107 degree heat.

Powell collapsed and was never revived. She later died at West Valley Hospital in the early morning hours of May 20, after ADC director Charles Ryan authorized doctors to suspend life support.

A 3,000 page internal investigation released by ADC last year revealed accounts by inmates that Powell was never given water and that she was mocked or ignored by ADC staff when she asked for water, to go to the bathroom, or to be taken back inside.

Though corrections officers maintained that Powell had been given water, her desiccated corpse argued otherwise. She had been kept outside in the blazing Arizona sun hours past the department's own two-hour cutoff for such en plein air detention. Also, her body was covered in excrement, as she soiled herself while in the enclosure.

But according to ADC spokesman Barrett Marson, the County Attorney's office never reviewed the 3,000 page report released last year. Instead, the CA received a copy of ADC's separate, criminal investigation, which Marson characterized as "even more voluminous."

Based on that criminal investigation, the CA's office concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" to go forward with a prosecution.

Why didn't the CA get to see the internal investigation, which was made public and reported on by several news outlets? This has to do with something called "the Garrity rule," based on the U.S. Supreme Court decision Garrity vs. New Jersey.

According to the Garrity rule, law enforcement officers can be compelled to answer certain questions by their employers, but those statements cannot be used against a LEO in criminal proceedings.

The CA's office is currently preparing the criminal case file for release. In the meantime, they have released a PowerPoint presentation given by ADC staff to the CA's office. You can see a copy of it, here. (Warning, it contains some blurry photos of Powell's corpse.)

"That was like reading the Reader's Digest condensed version of things," said prison reform advocate Donna Hamm after reviewing the document. "Clearly they left out a lot of relevant, very important stuff, like the fact that she had soiled herself a couple of times. It was a cleaned-up condensed version."

Nevertheless, the PowerPoint is damning. It notes that some officers were aware that the mentally ill Powell was on psychotropic drugs that could cause "an elevation of the body temperature."

And you would think that staff psychologist Dr. Susan Kaz, the person who (according to the PowerPoint) directed the c.o.'s to move Powell from her cell to the outside enclosure, would have been aware of this as well.

When Powell's body was examined by the county coroner, it was found to have a core body temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit. It may have been higher, as medical thermometers only go as far as 108 degrees.

Corrections officers provided conflicting statements according to the PowerPoint. They didn't keep proper logs and notes. And some displayed callous indifference to Powell's suffering.

When officers discovered that Powell had collapsed, one asked officer Esmeralda Pegues, who was stationed nearby the enclosure, how long Powell had been on the ground.

"Officer Pegues replied with words to the effect of, `several minutes,'" the PowerPoint states.

Pegues was one of the seven officers the ADC requested felony charges on. The others were Evan Hazelton, Iain Fenyves, Electra Allen, Cortez Agnew, Anita Macias and Ariana Mena.

Hamm told me that she doesn't believe that conflicting statements from the c.o.'s should be enough to stop a prosecution.

"In any big crime, there are conflicting witnesses," she argued. "That shouldn't scare off the county attorney."

The CA's decision on this matter is disappointing. I'm left to wonder if things might have been different if Powell had next-of-kin willing to push for indictments on her behalf.

Indeed, there's no one around to even sue. Her aged, estranged adoptive mother, who lives in California, reportedly wanted nothing to do with Powell's case.

More than 16 ADC employees were ultimately fired or disciplined in the fallout from the Powell incident, but that's hardly justice. Powell's death deserves more.

Accidental State-Assisted Suicide in AZ

Thanks again to Stephen Lemons for digging  a lttile deeper than the AZ Republic is ever willing to go (unless they're kissing someone's ass, in which case they have no limits). This is the first part of the article - you'll have to hit their site to continue. I guess I would have read the statute they refer to as giving the director the authority to CONTINUE medical care - since there was a minimal chance of recovery - not DISCONTINUE medical care.

The indication that Marcia was put in the cage as a sort of suicide watch is disturbing, since that's not policy, and clearly no one was watching. Since she was begging for water and relief from the sun, I can only assume she had changed her mind about wanting to die.

There have been so many cases of abuse, neglect and sexual exploitation throughout the department - the more I hear the more certain I am that we can't be satisfied that the Arizona Department of Corrections will suddenly transform themselves into a gentler, kinder institution. We must get transparency and close citizen oversight there, a strong prisoner rights presence, some kind of support for corrections officers and prisoners who go public, and legislative reforms.

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Arizona’s Shameless About the Cage Death of Marcia Powell

Phoenix New Times
September 29, 2009

"Many of Powell's guards say she was given water, though inmates observing Powell in the cage say she was not and that her cries for water were mocked. Why she remained in the cage for so long is not adequately explained. Nor are the actions of a prison psychologist who supposedly ordered Powell "placed in a recreation enclosure" because Powell had threatened suicide if she remained in her cell."

CAGE TIME

After wading through the Arizona Department of Corrections' recently released doorstop report on the cage death of Marcia Powell, I'm not sure whom I'd rather see get a taste of Powell's open-air sunbake: acting ADC director Charles Ryan, his pathetic excuse for a boss, Governor Jan Brewer, or the simpering keyboard-tapper at the Arizona Republic who just penned an anonymous bravo for Ryan titled, "Corrections boss' candor laudable."

Powell, of course, is the 48-year-old who was locked in a shadeless human cage at Goodyear's Perryville Prison on May 19 and endured 107-degree heat for four or more hours (depending on what part of the report you want to believe), was forced to defecate in her cage and on herself like a dog, and was denied adequate, or any, water (more likely the latter) until she collapsed, apparently of heatstroke.

She did not die at Perryville. Rather, Ryan ordered the plug pulled on her at West Valley Medical Center when doctors there found her case to be hopeless.

Ryan, known to his detractors as "Darth Ryan," told doctors, according to the report, that he would be acting as Marcia Powell's guardian, in lieu of family members. Thing is, Powell already had a court-appointed guardian, Maricopa County's Office of the Public Fiduciary, which labored after Powell's death to find a family member who could take custody of her remains. An adoptive mom wanted nothing to do with the disposition of Powell's body, a representative of the Fiduciary's Office later told a judge looking into the matter.

The ADC's report states that "information regarding the guardianship of [inmate] Powell was not available," but, in fact, there was a record of Powell's guardianship; it's just that Ryan did not have the information. Indeed, the report states that a representative from the Fiduciary's Office had visited Powell in ADC custody in March — less than two months before her death. So ADC should have been aware of Powell's guardian.
The report suggests that Ryan acted within the parameters of the law, citing Arizona Revised Statute 41-1604.01, which states that when any person "under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections, other than employees," needs emergency medical care, and there's no next of kin or legal guardian available, the ADC director "may authorize the performance of such necessary medical, surgical, or dental service."

However, when an ADC investigator questioned Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Gary Strickland, counsel for the Fiduciary's Office, about the statute, Strickland had a very different interpretation of it.
"Mr. Strickland stated Title 41 did not entitle the director of the Department of Corrections to make the decision to discontinue life-saving measures on Powell," reads the report, "and that his office, the guardian of Marcia Powell, should have been contacted."

Just a niggling detail — all this stuff about a guardian, right? After all, West Valley Medical Center's Dr. Mae Dumlao told an ADC investigator that Powell was "clinically dead" and there was only "an extremely minimal chance" that Powell could have somehow survived her heat-related injuries. Powell was actually having a heart attack as she entered the hospital, which was in "direct relation to heatstroke and hypobulemic [sic] shock."

Particularly chilling is the description by Dr. Kevin Hiselhorse, who treated Powell upon her arrival to the hospital. Hiselhorse confirmed that "Powell's eyes were dilated and fixed, which indicated brain damage due to her body temperature exceeding 108 degrees." Hiselhorse explained that he could only get a temp of 108 degrees "because thermometers in healthcare only go as high as 108."

Hiselhorse also informed the ADC investigator that he had never seen a patient recover from a 108-degree temperature and that "at that temperature, the body's organs began to melt and the brain begins to coagulate."

(finish article at the New Times' site)

Powell tortured to death in AZ prison.

I'm glad this is finally out there.

Needless to say, Director Ryan, given the news, the cease-fire is off. Sorry it was so short-lasted. I now have a better idea why you no longer wanted to speak to me. You don’t really care what I say – you just need to be careful not to incriminate yourselves. Even if I did hit a few nerves, I think I gave you a break, all things considered. I hope you’re all under a federal civil rights investigation, and can expect Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch at your door.

This may be about as far as I can go as an abolitionist. Set free the check-bouncers, shop-lifters, drug addicts, and other petty criminals. I even want to set free a few old "terrorists" and Black Panthers. But these people I want to put in prison for a good long time. In Arizona, where we can be fairly sure their lives will be made as difficult as possible, and that they will be neglected, abused, and brutalized for their crimes - whatever their degree of complicity or criminality.

But it's not just about them. These ADC employees were bred by the Arizona Department of Corrections' culture. They aren't aberrations we can dismiss; they're a troubling but pervasive and natural manifestation of an institution that systematically dehumanizes people in order to justify the circumstances and conditions of their confinement. What we do to prisoners day in and day out all across this country is inhumane.

As for Ryan - the ultimate responsibility is his. He has precious little time to bring about substantial institutional change. His saving grace is that he's not the one who's been running this show for so long. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano has a huge chunk of responsibility for this, too, as does her sidekick, Dora Schriro. All she ultimately did to reform state prisons during her stint appears to have been cosmetic surgery.

But Ryan hasn't exactly been a minor player all this time. Nor is he new to the scene. For this to come as such a shock to him - if it does - suggests that perhaps he needs to listen a little more attentively to what former employees and prisoners have to say about his institutions, because I've heard a lot of it before, myself, and I don't have anything like the kind of access he does to his people. 

This could have been prevented.

Abuse. Neglect. Cruelty. Punishment cages. 

Torture. 

No one wanted to believe it could happen here.

Too bad there weren't any investigative journalists really on top of this from the beginning. They were all over it for a few days, then before Marcia’s ashes were even put away, the story, as it were, was dead. 

For those who missed it, in the wake of Marcia's homicide last spring, an officer killed himself out at the complex, and 3 women in maximum security set their mattresses on fire (from prison, that's usually an SOS). Every sign of disturbance at Perryville was quickly repressed; the investigation was all the more reason to restrict access to information.

Women living there had no reason to believe they were safe in the hands of their keepers. Families who could get news to the outside were afraid their loved ones might be identified and retaliated against. The department knows of these concerns. I'd like to know how they intend to go about addressing them. 

The institutional culture at the ADC that allowed this to happen - and far more occasions of neglect and abuse we'll never hear about (it’s damn near impossible for prisoners to get rights protections in court anymore) won't be changed by tweaking the policies, putting shade on the cages, and hanging the bad apples out to dry. I'm not sure it can be changed at all - that's why I'd vote to smash the state apparatus and start over, myself, without prisons and a system entrenched in retributive justice.

Except, perhaps, for people like those responsible for Marcia's death. Them I would condemn to a long, slow death by incarceration and slavery.

Call me a hypocrite, but this is a barrier I can't seem to get around just now. I just don’t know what restorative justice would look like for people like them.

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Details emerge in inmate's heat-related death

Report describes mis-communications, policy violations

by Casey Newton - Sept. 24, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Disturbing new details emerged Wednesday in the death of Marcia Powell, an Arizona state prison inmate who died of heat-related causes after being left in an outdoor cage for hours.


The Arizona Department of Corrections' internal investigation of Powell's death on May 20 runs about 3,000 pages. The department announced this week that it has disciplined 16 people in connection with the incident, with five employees fired or forced to resign. A criminal investigation is ongoing.

Interviews with prison staff members, inmates and medical personnel illustrate how a series of policy violations and miscommunications led to Powell's collapse at Arizona State Prison Complex-Perryville in Good- year. She later died at West Valley Hospital.

Among the report's findings:

• Powell passed out in her cell on the morning of May 19. A few minutes before, she had announced she was suicidal. She was taken to an outdoor cage to await transfer to a psychiatric unit. But the sergeant who saw Powell lose consciousness never reported the incident to supervisors, despite the fact that Powell said she was having trouble breathing.

• At least 20 inmates told investigators that Powell was denied water for most or all of the time she was in her cage, despite regular requests. Corrections officers said Powell was given water.

• Powell was taking psychotropic medications that made her particularly sensitive to the heat, but medical personnel did not convey that fact to corrections officers.

• After more than two hours in the sun, Powell requested to be taken back to her indoor cell. Her request was denied.

• Powell was apparently denied a request to use the restroom and defecated in the cage. A corrections officer discovered that Powell had soiled herself but left her where she was. Medical personnel would later discover feces underneath her fingernails and all over her back.

• The psychiatric unit to which Powell was awaiting transport should have accepted her hours before she died, the report found, but a series of miscommunications prevented her from being taken in.

Powell, who was serving a sentence for prostitution, said she felt suicidal at 11 a.m. on May 19 and was escorted to the outdoor cage to await transportation for psychiatric care at the prison complex detention unit.
Officers seeking to move Powell to the unit were first told that it did not have available beds. Later, another inmate in the unit refused to put handcuffs on to be taken back to her cell, causing the staff to trigger its incident command system. The incident took more than 90 minutes to resolve, during which time no other inmates were brought into the unit.

Officers monitoring Powell were wary of asking psychiatric-unit staffers to accept another inmate during the standoff, even though three beds had become available. But investigators said it would have been possible to transfer Powell, since the uncooperative inmate was locked in a secure cell.

Prison policy calls for inmates to be kept in outdoor cells for a maximum of two hours. The cells had no shade, and on the day Powell died, temperatures hit 107.5 degrees.

Officers did not properly log Powell's time in the outdoor cell or when they checked on her. When she collapsed, no one could say for certain how long she had been there.

Doctors on the scene said Powell's body temperature was at least 108 degrees but may have been higher, since their thermometers topped out at 108.

Charles Ryan, corrections department director, called Powell's death "unconscionable" and "an absolute failure."

The most bitterly disputed aspect of the case concerns whether Powell was denied water.
Nearly all of the inmates interviewed by investigators reported that Powell screamed out for water regularly but was repeatedly denied. Others said she was granted water only once or twice in nearly four hours.

"I need some water - just a drop," one inmate overheard Powell tell a corrections officer, who reportedly ignored her.

Another inmate reported that a corrections officer mockingly repeated Powell's requests for water back to her, without giving her any.

All of the corrections officers interviewed for the report said Powell had been given water throughout her outdoor confinement.

Both inmates and staff members said Powell's history of mental illness and frequent erratic behavior meant that some of her requests were not taken seriously. She did not get the staff's undivided attention until she collapsed at 2:40 p.m.

Timothy Johnson, a physician's assistant who attempted to revive Powell, swore repeatedly at investigators when asked about Powell's death.


"This should not have happened," he said.