ATLANTA (CN) — A Georgia Senate panel held its first hearing Thursday over issues at the troubled Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, where former President Donald Trump surrendered to election interference-related charges in August.
State lawmakers formed the panel in response to the 10 deaths that have occurred at the facility just this year, including six in August alone. Of the 10 deaths, two were homicides, four were due to natural causes, three were caused by overdoses and one more death is thought to be caused by an overdose. The deaths have raised ethical concerns as many people held in the jail have not been found guilty of a crime.
Amelia Joiner, general counsel for the jail, told the panel arrestees are spending an average of 295 days in jail, when the average number of days experts say a detainee should be kept is around 30. That means inmates are being held almost 10 times longer than the amount of time they should be held at the jail, said Joiner.
Some of the detainees are being held for long periods of time due to being charged with crimes that don't allow a judge to set a bond, such as murder, and are awaiting trial, Joiner said. But others who are granted bond can't afford to pay it.
Of the 3,500 people jailed at the end of August in Fulton County, 35% had yet to be indicted and faced no other charges.
Samuel Lawrence, who died in the jail in August, had not been indicted despite seven months in the jail. He died weeks before his bond reduction hearing and just days after filing a civil rights complaint.
“I don’t know how much more I can take,” the 34-year-old wrote in his complaint. “I’m starving, I’m thirsty.”
The family of 19-year-old Noni Battiste-Kosoko is still seeking answers as to what lead to the woman's sudden death while in custody this past July. For a month she was held at the Atlanta City Detention Center on a misdemeanor bench warrant, but denied bond due to additional charges out of Miami.
About 1,000 of the jail's detainees suffer from severe or serious mental health problems, Joiner told the panel. A lack of access to behavioral health care across the state has led many struggling Georgians to jails.
Representatives with familiarity on the inner mechanisms of jails from the Georgia Sheriff’s Association and the National Institute for Jail Operations told the panel that housing people who should be under psychological care for mental health problems is a huge issue.
As of Wednesday, officials had counted nearly 300 stabbings at the jail this year, Joiner told lawmakers, with more than 900 inmate-on-inmate assaults and 68 assaults on staff.
County officials claim the violence at the jail is largely being driven by overcrowding, forcing hundreds of detainees to sleep on the floor. More than 300 beds inside the jail's main facility were “inoperable” due to deterioration of the 33 year-old county building, Joiner said.
“The physical plant has become so dilapidated that the inmates are able to create weapons by reaching into the walls, using broken flooring, electrical covering, pipes, et cetera, to create makeshift weapons,” she said.
Joiner did note that some recent improvements at the facility have reduced the number of inmates to roughly 2,900, which has lowered the amount of people sleeping on the floor from 600 to 13.
“A lot of people have lost their lives and we can’t ever have that happen,” Senate Public Safety Chairman John Albers said. “We will make sure that process of criminal justice, from beginning to end, is working properly.”
Albers asked what is needed to alleviate the jail's problems. Joiner said it could use more staff, more funding and a new building.
Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has campaigned to build a new jail, but the estimated cost of $1.7 billion or more has drawn opposition. Fulton County Commission chair Robb Pitts has said he wants to seek other solutions, in part because such an expensive undertaking would likely require a tax increase on the more than million county residents.
The formation of the state Senate panel came as some state Republicans lawmakers have sought to sanction Fulton District Attorney Fani Willis for initiating a wide-ranging election interference investigation that led to racketeering and other criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and 18 others this year. Their colleague, state Senator Shawn Still, faces charges over his role in a slate of Trump electors purporting to represent the electoral votes from Georgia in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
A 23-year-old detainee, Dayvion Blake, was fatally stabbed just days after the 19 defendants, including Trump, were booked at the jail for their charges. Most of Trump's associates, however, were released in less than an hour.
Willis has dismissed criticism that her pursuits against Trump were diverting her office's resources and staff from handling other cases, saying, “We can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Senate Majority Whip Randy Robertson, a Republican who used to work at a Georgia jail, repelled the notion that the investigation was political, and that its goal was for lawmakers to find recommendations for improvements.
“This will not be a political podium for anyone to come and speak about what their beliefs are,” Robertson said at the beginning of the hearing. “My intent is for this to be an educational process (for other senators) so that all of us on this committee have a better understanding.”
The death of Lashawn Thompson, whose body was found covered with thousands of insects inside a deteriorating cell of the jail's psychiatric unit in September 2022, spurred the U.S. Department of Justice to open up an investigation into the Fulton County Jail. The agency said its investigation will look into whether the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office “discriminate against persons with psychiatric disabilities inside the jail.”
More than 60 Fulton inmates died between 2009 and 2022, the highest total for any jail in Georgia during that time, according to findings from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The most recent national figures available, from 2019, show that jail deaths around the country were on the rise even before the pandemic. From 2000 to 2019, jail deaths per capita increased by 11%, to 167 per 100,000.
Follow @Megwiththenews
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
Surgery retaliation April 25, 2024 -
Flirting with trouble April 25, 2024