Margie Lee Hulitt woke up full of hope.
She was making arrangements to bail her son out of jail. Willie Lee, 40, had been arrested nine days earlier for climbing through a neighbor’s window to hide from police who were responding to a call of a disturbance at his girlfriend’s house.
Hulitt called Orleans Parish Prison and keyed in her son’s name on her cell phone. A recorded voice on the jail’s automated line surprised her: It said Willie Lee had been released.
How could he be free, Hulitt wondered, if his family didn’t post his bond?
Hulitt said she called the jail again and again, and got the same message every time: Willie Lee had been released that morning at 8:30.
She spent the next several hours in her eastern New Orleans home waiting for him to call or knock on the door or contact his girlfriend or children. She called her daughter, Felicia Lee, a deputy at the jail who was working that Sunday in late March, to check on her brother. Her daughter checked the computer system and saw the same message: Willie Lee had been released.
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Gallery: New Orleans jail deaths: dying at OPP
Later that night, Hulitt heard from an old girlfriend of Willie Lee’s. She had just received a call from an inmate in OPP. “She told me Willie was dead, that he was killed in the jail,” Hulitt said. “It can’t be Willie. It can’t be. She said, ‘Yes, it is.'”
Felicia Lee called her mother shortly thereafter with the same news.
Unable to reach the coroner’s office on a Sunday night, and unable to locate his body at any local hospitals, Hulitt went to the jail where, she said, a prison official invited Hulitt and her daughter into a small office, and finally confirmed what they had heard through the grapevine: Lee had a fight with another inmate, had a heart attack and died. Lee had been pronounced dead at 12:17 a.m. March 23 at LSU Interim Hospital.
“I said, ‘Why didn’t someone contact me or his sister working back here? Why didn’t they get in contact with her?'” Hulitt said. “He said they tried to get in contact with me but they didn’t have a known address.”
When Margie Lee Hulitt called OPP, the jail’s answering system said her son, Willie Lee, had been released. She learned later Lee had died at a hospital. His death remains under investigation. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
When Margie Lee Hulitt called OPP, the jail’s answering system said her son, Willie Lee, had been released. She learned later Lee had died at a hospital. His death remains under investigation. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
In notifying the public of the death a day later, Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s office reiterated that Lee had died of cardiac arrest following some kind of fight. Lee had extensive heart problems, Gusman’s written statement said.
But based in part on information mailed to her by an inmate who was in OPP at the same time, Hulitt said she believes her son’s sudden heart problem was brought on by a beating by inmates and made worse by excessive force and lack of medical attention by guards.
She has filed a lawsuit. Lee’s death remains under investigation.
While the coroner and the courts sort out the cause of death, Hulitt, national corrections experts, and the families of other inmates who have died after being jailed at OPP, are raising concerns about a notification process so dysfunctional that a mother learned of her son’s death from an ex-girlfriend acting on a tip from an OPP inmate.
About this series
Why are families not notified until days or weeks after inmates die? Why does the lockup investigate its own deaths instead of calling in an outside agency? And when sick or injured inmates die at the hospital, why do those deaths go uncounted, and sometimes fail to get a proper investigation?
A months-long NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune investigation into OPP inmate deaths exposed institutional failings and institutional indifference that persist despite a court-ordered overhaul of the long-troubled New Orleans jail.
This is the first in a multi-part series.
At the very least, the experts say, it reveals a lack of professionalism and compassion underlying broader systemic problems at OPP, which have already landed the jail under a federal court order requiring widespread changes.
At its worst, critics say, it can be evidence of something more sinister: jailers covering up violence, poor conditions and negligence in a jail where the death rate often exceeds state and national averages.
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune examined hundreds of pages of public records and interviewed the relatives of four inmates who have died after being jailed at the city’s lockup: Lee, Cayne Miceli, Kerry Washington and Mark Jones.
In all four of those cases, the actions of guards or inmates have been questioned. And in all four cases, the jail’s mishandling of the death notification heightened the family’s suspicions about what happened behind the jail’s walls.
The failure to properly notify families goes back to at least 2004, when Mark Jones was critically injured after spending only three hours in OPP. The sheriff’s office didn’t make an attempt to reach out to the family until nearly a day after doctors made the decision to take him off life support, according to a lawsuit filed against the sheriff’s office on behalf of the family in 2005.
In the lawsuit, attorney Mary Howell said the jail failed to have in place adequate policies to “insure family members of arrestees on minor charges who were in critical and/or terminal condition, were contacted in order to permit the families to provide love and comfort and to participate in medical treatment decisions and, if necessary, end-of-life decision making.”
One of the main gates to Orleans Parish Prison. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
One of the main gates to Orleans Parish Prison. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
The jail now has such a policy, but records and interviews with relatives and inmate advocates show it isn’t always followed.
“You can have the best written policies in the world, but if you don’t have a real commitment to making sure things are done right, things are not going to be done right,” Howell said.
There is no national standard regarding family notification in jail deaths. There are only vague guidelines. American Correctional Association standards recommend a “process by which individuals designated by the offender are notified in case of serious illness, serious injury or death, unless security reason dictate otherwise. If possible, permission for notification is obtained from the offender.”
Rod Miller and Jeffrey Schwartz, former consultants with the National Institute of Corrections, have spent time evaluating OPP. They have both spent decades working with and studying the corrections industry, but have slightly different takes on OPP’s family notification system.
Miller said that given the troubles the jail has had over the past decade with infrastructure, overcrowding, understaffing and violence, it’s not a surprise that officials haven’t been focused on some of the more basic tasks like family notification.
To Schwartz, however, there is no excuse.
“The family of the people who are locked up did not commit the crime, so why would you subject them to this extraordinary pain and suffering?” he said. “They could change this tomorrow if they wanted to, and they should.”
The sheriff’s official written policy on notification in the event of “serious illness, injury or death” – written in 2009 and updated in 2011 – already aligns with American Correctional Association recommendations. The sheriff’s office, it states, is supposed to obtain the names of the inmate’s “next of kin” and permission to contact them, “prior to need if possible.”
If an inmate is seriously injured or sick, the first priority is securing medical treatment, according to the written policy. The second is notifying the “responsible party” if the inmate is sent to the hospital, “so long as security is not compromised.” This refers to inmates held on the most serious charges, such as murder.
If the inmate dies, the family is supposed to be notified by “the Special Operations Division, the Medical Director, a member of the Chaplain’s Office, and the Warden.”
OPP has proven capable of operating within the guidelines. Last September, the jail’s’ medical director and its chief of security went to the home of Clifton Morgan’s mother just hours after he hanged himself to personally tell them the news. But notable failures have come to light in lawsuits filed by relatives.
The sheriff’s office did not respond to multiple interview requests, but court documents and news reports provide various reasons for the communication failures: antiquated computer system; missing emergency contact information on prisoner intake form; or, in Lee’s case, a clerical error transcribing an address. Hulitt’s address was on Werner Drive, but was listed on jail documents as “Warner Drive.”
Where jail officials see a series of coincidental administrative mishaps, critics see an institutional disregard for the families of inmates who die or are seriously injured while detained at OPP.
Fitzroy George, 27, was hospitalized in 2010 after being stabbed 18 times in the back by another inmate at the jail. George’s sister, Samantha George, told reporters she only found out from an inmate and acquaintances in the criminal justice system.
The sheriff’s public relations firm said at the time that George’s injuries — two collapsed lungs and 18 stab wounds — were “not critical enough” for the family to be notified.
In all four of the deaths reviewed by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, relatives called the jail to check on their loved ones and were told they had been released, when in fact they were already dead or on life support.
“If it happens one time, OK, maybe it’s an aberration,” said attorney Jill Craft, who represents the family of Kerry Washington, an inmate who died at OPP in April 2006. “But this happens all the time, and it’s been happening for years.”
The following stories shared by three families whose loved ones died in Orleans Parish Prison include a woman told by deputies her sister had been released from jail when doctors had already declared her brain dead; a wife told every day for two weeks that her husband was alive when he had been dead the entire time; and a father who wasn’t told his son was critically injured by a guard until doctors took him off life support.
‘Cayne didn’t go to jail because she’s a criminal. She went to jail because she had a bad day.’
Inmate: Cayne Miceli
Charge: Arrested 2:45 p.m. Jan. 4, 2009 for disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, battery on a hospital security officer
Hospitalized: 3:12 a.m. Jan. 5, 2009
Died: Jan. 6, 2009
Family notified: By doctors on Jan. 6, 2009
Miceli, who suffered from depression, was arrested at Tulane Medical Center for biting a security officer’s ankle as he tried to remove her from the hospital. She had checked herself in for treatment several hours earlier after suffering a severe asthma attack. Miceli panicked when the doctors tried to release her because she felt she needed more treatment, her sister, Cristy Richmond, said.
Cayne Miceli, 43, who was jailed on misdemeanor charges, died on Jan. 6, 2009 of asthma complications after being placed in five-point restraints by OPP staff. When her family called OPP, they were told she had been released, when in fact she was on life support at a hospital. A lawsuit is pending. (Miceli family photo)
Cayne Miceli, 43, who was jailed on misdemeanor charges, died on Jan. 6, 2009 of asthma complications after being placed in five-point restraints by OPP staff. When her family called OPP, they were told she had been released, when in fact she was on life support at a hospital. A lawsuit is pending. (Miceli family photo)
After she was booked at OPP, she went from panicked to suicidal, court papers say. She tried to kill herself, so sheriff’s deputies strapped her to a bed in five-point restraints, something that never should have happened, her family says in a lawsuit, because she had just been hospitalized for a severe asthma attack.
Less than five hours later, Miceli stopped breathing.
When paramedics arrived, she had been without a pulse for 25 minutes. After they revived her, Miceli was taken to the emergency room at University Hospital at approximately 3 a.m. She was diagnosed with hypoxic brain injury, post-code cerebral edema, metabolic acidosis and cardiac arrest.
About a day after she was hospitalized, Gusman called a judge to have her released from his custody. But no one from the sheriff’s office notified the family to say that she was near death, according to the family’s lawsuit. Later that same day, a doctor called Richmond.
“He asked if I knew Cayne, and said she was in prison. He said, ‘We need you to come and make decisions.’ I didn’t get it at the time. I called my dad and we drove to New Orleans that day.”
Richmond said she called the jail to find out what had happened, and was told that her sister had been released and was no longer in custody.
“I don’t know how that doctor got my phone number, but if he hadn’t gotten our phone number I don’t know how long it would have been before we knew anything was wrong,” Richmond said.
Miceli’s family arrived at the hospital before she removed from life support. She was 43 years old.
More than five years later, Richmond said she is still haunted by the experience.
“A lot of people still don’t care. They say, ‘Well, you shouldn’t go to jail in the first place,'” Richmond said. “But Cayne didn’t go to jail because she’s a criminal. She went to jail because she had a bad day.
“Can you imagine what her last thoughts were, what she was thinking before she died? I can’t get it out of my head.”
‘They misled me the whole entire time. … I was destroyed.’
Inmate: Kerry Washington
Charge: Domestic battery
Jailed in Jefferson Parish: April 25, 2006
Transferred to OPP: April 27, 2006
Died: April 29, 2006
Family notified: May 13, 2006
Washington, 39, was arrested at his Marrero home after an argument with his wife. Before the argument could turn physical, Cheryl Washington said, she called the police, who arrested her husband on a domestic violence charge.
Kerry Washington’s wife, Cheryl, holds onto a large portrait of the family back in happier times. Washington died on April 26, 2009 after being jailed at OPP, but his family did not find out for two weeks. His family was photographed at their home in Marrero on Friday, May 16, 2014. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Kerry Washington’s wife, Cheryl, holds onto a large portrait of the family back in happier times. Washington died on April 26, 2009 after being jailed at OPP, but his family did not find out for two weeks. His family was photographed at their home in Marrero on Friday, May 16, 2014. (Photo by Chris Granger, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Washington spent two days in the Jefferson Parish jail before he was transferred to Orleans Parish Prison on an outstanding warrant for first-offense marijuana possession.
The last time Cheryl Washington heard from her husband was April 28, 2006, when he called from OPP. They discussed how she could go about dropping the charges, she said. She hadn’t intended to press charges; she only called police so the fight would not escalate.
Cheryl Washington didn’t hear from her husband the next day, she said, so she called OPP. She was told that her husband had been released. No more information was available.
“If he was released he would have called me to pick him up,” Cheryl Washington said. “So I’m looking all over for him, was calling people asking if they saw or heard from him … something was wrong.”
Cheryl Washington said she called the jail every day for two weeks. And every time, deputies told her that her husband had been released.
She went to the jail May 13. That’s when prison officials informed her that her husband had “expired” on April 29.
The official cause of death was cardiac arrhythmia, respiratory insufficiency, excited delirium, and death during restraint. The coroner ruled it an accidental death.
Washington’s family claimed that he died after being beaten by inmates, abused by sheriff deputies and strapped so tightly to a bed in five-point restraints that he stopped breathing; they filed a lawsuit against Gusman that went to trial in April. The family awaits the judge’s verdict.
During the Washington trial, prison officials blamed the failure to notify the family on an antiquated computer system. Like many jail facilities, OPP has just two classifications for its inmates, “in-custody” or “released,” testified Col. Michael Laughlin, the sheriff’s assistant chief of security and the commander of the Special Operations Division.
There is no classification for injured, hospitalized or dead. Inmates who die are reclassified as released.
The sheriff’s attorney Blake Arcuri said in court that another reason they couldn’t notify Washington’s family was because he didn’t list an emergency contact on his intake form.
Jill Craft, who represents the Washingtons, said that while there was no emergency contact listed, Washington’s home address, where he lived with his wife, was included on his intake form.
“He was dead the whole two weeks,” Cheryl Washington said. “I was calling up there every day, all day, constantly calling, sending my brother up there and they were telling me the same thing: that he had been released. They misled me the whole entire time. … I was destroyed.”
‘They never told me anything was wrong’
Inmate: Mark Jones
Charge: Public drunkenness
Jailed in Orleans Parish Prison: June 28, 2004
Hospitalized: June 28, 2004
Died: June 29, 2004
Family notified: June 30, 2004
Jones, 35, was booked into OPP in 2004 after police found him passed out in the grass outside a New Orleans gas station. After he arrived at OPP, he got into a fight with several deputies and suffered a fractured neck and severe head trauma, including a lacerated vertebral artery that caused brain damage. A deputy later went to prison for delivering the fatal blow that killed Jones.
Mark Jones, 35, in an undated family photo, died at a hospital on June 29, 2004 after a violent altercation at OPP. He was on life support for 30 hours while his family searched for him. He died before his family could get to him in the hospital.
Mark Jones, 35, in an undated family photo, died at a hospital on June 29, 2004 after a violent altercation at OPP. He was on life support for 30 hours while his family searched for him. He died before his family could get to him in the hospital.
During the 30 hours Jones spent at Charity Hospital, his brother Matthew Jones called the jail repeatedly and was never told his brother was hospitalized or seriously injured.
“All they told me was that I couldn’t bail him out until (his case) went to court,” Matthew Jones said. “They never told me anything was wrong.”
Doctors also called the jail during that same period: once to ask deputies to contact Jones’ family to tell them he was dying; and a second time to ask deputies to contact the family to get their consent for Jones to be an organ donor, according to a lawsuit filed by the family. Both times jail employees assured the hospital that they would call Jones’ family but never did.
The doctors at Charity Hospital said they waited as long as they could to hear from Jones’ family but finally made the decision to remove him from life support. Jones died without parents or brother present at 9:39 p.m. June 29, 2004.
The next day, sometime in the late afternoon, Matthew Jones said someone from the jail called to tell him that his brother was dead.
“Mark was a great young man, but he was an alcoholic,” his father, Brownie Jones, said. “It wasn’t unusual for him to wind up in jail for intoxication and most of the time when something like this happened, we were relieved because we knew where he was, that he was in jail and would be OK after he sobered up. But this time everything was just different.
Orleans Parish Prison, where 44 inmates have died since Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Chris Granger, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
Orleans Parish Prison, where 44 inmates have died since Hurricane Katrina. (Photo by Chris Granger, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
“I don’t really know how to describe it. We were devastated.”
During the 30 hours Jones was on life support in the hospital, when his family was searching for him, the jail was in possession of Jones’ wallet. Contained in the wallet confiscated at booking: business cards with his brother’s cell phone number, and Jones’ driver’s license with an organ donor sticker on the front.
Naomi Martin contributed reporting. Photos and video by Chris Granger.