ACLU of Georgia, Sutherland, and Attorney Brian Spears File Lawsuit on Behalf of the Widow of Roberto Medina-Martinez

Roberto Medina-Martinez Died at Stewart Detention Center Due to Alleged Negligence of Medical Staff

March 27, 2012

CONTACT:
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia, (404) 574-0851; ashahshahani@acluga.org
Brian Spears, (404) 872-7086; bspears@mindspring.com

ATLANTA – The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Sutherland, and Attorney Brian Spears filed a lawsuit today in US District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on behalf of Sara Hernandez-Gonzalez, the widow of Roberto Medina-Martinez against the US Government for its negligence which led to the death of Mr. Medina.  Mr. Medina was a 39 year-old man from Mexico who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Stewart Detention Center.  Mr. Medina died while in ICE custody at St. Francis Hospital in Columbus, Georgia on March 11, 2009, from acute myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle that is usually caused by a viral infection and is often treatable.

“The records obtained by the ACLU show that Roberto Medina-Martinez was the victim of systemic negligence on the part of the medical staff at the Stewart Detention Center resulting in his unnecessary death,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director with the ACLU of Georgia. 

The Government’s negligence included the staff’s failure to have medical examinations signed by a physician in violation of Department of Homeland Security’s Division of Immigration Health Services (DIHS) policy and the failure to note Mr. Medina’s chest x-ray as abnormal.  The Government’s negligence also included the pervasive failure on the part of the lead physician to review health records, the proper review of which combined with appropriate follow-up could have prevented Mr. Medina’s death. 

This failure was not an aberration.  An investigation conducted following Mr. Medina’s death revealed that the physician was systematically failing to conduct the required review of the medical examination information, thereby jeopardizing the health of the entire detention center population. 

“With this lawsuit, we take the next step to seek justice for the widow and family of Roberto Medina-Martinez,” said Attorney Brian Spears.   “We contend that Mr. Medina’s death could have been prevented and that he died as a result of systematic neglect by certain medical professionals at the Stewart Detention Center.”

The lawsuit against the US Government charges that negligent acts and omissions of the Government or its agents caused the death of Mr. Medina and asks the court to award damages to Mr. Medina’s widow for his wrongful death.

Attorneys on the case include J. Dean Marshall and Benjamin Morgan of Sutherland; Chara Fisher Jackson and Shahshahani of the ACLU of Georgia; and Spears.

The actual complaint can be viewed here.

Part 2: An Unanswered Call for Answers

Below is the actual letter that was sent to Special Agent Lamkin and the Federal Bureau of Investigations seeking answers for the very questionable death of Roberto Martinez Medina. Mr. Medina died while he was in the custody of Corrections Corporation of America at the For-profit Stewart Detention Center. To this day no one from the FBI or Department of Homeland Security has contacted me to investigate this matter or respond to my very serious allegations relating to his untimely death. 

Incidentally I still feel "that this issue is much bigger than a blog entry on my humble blog." However I now feel that I'm left with no choice but to release my allegations here to possibly force a government investigation into this matter by airing the actual complaint as well as highlighting this incident that I believe led to the Department of Homeland Security to target myself and my blog for a rather lengthy and detailed investigation. In Part 3 I will focus on media coverage related to my blog and in Part 4 I will focus on the actual investigation that ICE/DHS conducted on me. (Picture is courtesy of Georgia Detention Watch).

Special Agent Lamkin,

Almost two years ago Roberto Medina died at the Stewart Detention Center (SDC) in Lumpkin, GA. This is a private for profit facility operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). It is my belief that CCA and Public Health Services workers have covered up pertinent details of his death and that Mr. Medina had his civil rights violated while in custody. Public Health Services provides medical services at SDC.

I would like to request that your agency look into this incident and resolve the many questions that still exist almost two years after his death. I run a blog that has previously reported on conditions at SDC. I was contacted by a current employee that revealed the following timeline concerning Mr. Medina's death:

2000 Hours (8 PM) - Roberto Medina is alive and lying on his bunk. Detainees report to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) staff members that Mr. Medina is very sick. The control room operator is asked by another CCA staff member to call medical to get Mr. Medina treatment. Several second shift officers then state that medical already knew and that Mr. Medina was fine. A staff member calls medical on the telephone from the unit anyway. Medical staff tells this staff member that the Public Health Service (PHS) doctor had previously seen Mr. Medina and that he was "okay."

0100 (1 AM) Before 2nd count a CCA staff member calls a "Medical Emergency" over the radio. Instead of coming to the unit (as policy requires) a medical staff member calls the unit on the telephone and asks what the emergency is. PHS were told on the phone that Mr. Medina was "very sick" and "would not respond" to CCA staff members. PHS again asserted that they were not coming to the unit because Mr. Medina had already been seen by medical and that he was fine. After count a different staff member was put into the housing unit with Mr. Medina. This was allegedly because the previous staff member was causing "trouble" by calling medical emergencies and medical staff about Mr. Medina's health status. A staff member alleges that Mr. Medina was deceased at the time of the 0100 count.

The next day staff learned that Mr. Medina had died. Word was sent to at least one staff member by the Sergeant on duty (at the Captains request) that they needed to keep "there mouth shut about stuff that they did not know anything about or that they might loose there job for talking about someones medical condition." Staff members were also reminded that CCA had had them all sign a privacy statement at the time that they were hired.

It is my belief that CCA and PHS violated Mr. Medina's civil rights by not providing him with emergency medical care. Furthermore that CCA and PHS both have attempted to cover-up the incident and that plenty of evidence of this exists if a proper investigation was to be conducted by your agency. Your agency should consider reviewing log book entries, video tape and interviewing staff on duty that day etc.

Mr. Medina was denied medical care over several shifts even though both staff and detainees attempted to get him seen by doctors. I feel that this issue is much bigger than a blog entry on my humble blog and deserves to be looked into in a much more formal manner.

Best Wishes,
Bryan L. Holcomb

Part 1: Death of an Immigrant

I'm a little late in posting this due to some health problems I have. This is the first part in a new series of articles on this blog detailing why I believe this blog was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security/Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. See last weeks blog for more information.

 

In March of 2009 Roberto Martinez Medina died while being detained at Corrections Corporation of America's (CCA) Stewart Detention Center (SDC). Mr. Medina died from what many people believe was a very treatable heart infection. Mr. Medina allegedly was repeatedly denied medical attention for this condition. Many activists and organizations have also pointed to the location of CCA's Stewart Detention Center as being a major factor in his death. With almost 2,000 people being detained at the Stewart Detention Center many people continue to believe that a location closer to major medical service providers should of been chosen for the facility. By locating this facility almost a full hour away from any source of advanced medical care, immigrants being detained there will continue to pay a price. For Mr. Medina that price was his life.

 

Many months after Mr. Medina's Death this blog began to receive reports of incompetence and indifference among Corrections Corporation of America and Public Health Services employees that we believe led to Mr. Medina being denied medical care. Allegedly the Public Health Services medical staff on duty refused to see Mr. Medina while some of the Corrections Corporation of America staff on duty (who were aware of Mr. Medina's pleas for medical care) displayed an uncaring attitude that ignored Mr. Medina's pain and suffering even as they watched him very slowly die in front of them. It is my personal belief that the repeated denial of medical services while in Corrections Corporation of America's custody at the Stewart Detention Center had an immediate and terminal effect on Mr. Medina's health.

 

This blog however also wishes to highlight the previously undocumented actions of a few unnamed Corrections Corporation of America staff members who in the face of corporate adversity did the right thing and continued to try and seek medical care for Mr. Medina. Perhaps if the Corrections Corporation of America supervisors on duty and the facilities administration had been more sympathetic to there pleas of needed care then Mr. Medina would still be with us today. It is regretful that these employees can not get the recognition that they deserve for trying to prevent what ultimately became a possibly preventable tragedy. The fear that these employees felt in contacting me in regards to Mr. Medina's death speaks volumes about the environment and corporate culture that Corrections Corporation of America appears to have in place at the Stewart Detention Center.

 

As a blogger I chose at the time not to write about the allegations I received regarding Mr. Medina's untimely death on this blog. I believed that this issue was much larger than my own blog. I believed that it was far more important to try and get justice for Mr. Medina than to write about it to my blog's own very small readership. So instead of blogging I optimistically contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Atlanta, GA through FBI Special Agent in Charge Brian D. Lamkin to make a Civil Rights Complaint in the death of Mr. Medina. I contacted the FBI several times and to this day I have never received any type of reply from the FBI or any other government official or department regarding Mr. Medina's death. It had been my hope that an investigation into Mr. Medina's death would be conducted in order to prevent future situations like this from taking place. I had apparently wrongly believed that someone in the government would care about the death of a detainee who died while in the custody of a for-profit company that the United States government had subcontracted with to detain him.

 

All opinions expressed here are just that. Please cross check anything you read before forming your own opinion.

In the next part of this series I will release my actual (unanswered) letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) that outlines what I believe was a conspiracy to cover-up Corrections Corporation of America and Public Health Services negligence in the death of Mr. Medina. It is still my belief that employees of both of these entities denied Mr. Medina basic medical care which led to his death while in Corrections Corporation of America's custody.