Breaking news from the Prison Law Office: Three inmates at the Riverside jail have just served a federal action suit over their conditions, particularly the appalling health care. The press release provides two poignant examples:
Angela Patterson, a plaintiff in the case, suffered nearly a year of delays, cancellations, and inadequate medical care for severe injuries she sustained in a car accident prior to entering the jail. As a result, a temporary filter implanted near her heart cannot be removed, and she will suffer a lifetime of anticoagulation medications and frequent laboratory monitoring, with significant risk of fatal bleeds and other complications.
Quinton Gray, another plaintiff, was given potent psychotropic medication without appropriate evaluation or follow-up, placing him at risk for life-threatening consequences. As a result of the medication mismanagement and treatment failures, he lives with agonizing side effects: twitching, tongue-biting, increased seizures and tongue swelling, racing thoughts, disorientation, depression, and chronic sleep loss.
The inmates complain that the slashing of medical care budgets in Riverside have yielded unacceptable practices. They are represented by the Prison Law Office and by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Before Realignment, one of the arguments in favor of shifting inmates from prisons to jails was that surely the counties would do a better job than the overcrowded state institutions. This is not the case in several jails, and we might see an increasing number of lawsuits focused on unacceptable jail conditions.
Join us for California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform for a conversation about county jail conditions.
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