Sheriffs split on how to investigate jail deaths
When Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.’s staff investigated three deaths at his jail last year, the decision prompted outcry from local politicians and family members of the deceased.
But the approach is hardly unprecedented in Wisconsin, where sheriff’s detectives routinely investigate their coworkers following inmate deaths, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis shows.
Over the past five years, about 40% of deaths in Wisconsin county jails were investigated internally, without an independent agency called to lead the case, the Journal Sentinel found. In the other 60% of cases, sheriff’s departments and offices requested neighboring police agencies to take over the case, often within minutes or hours of a death.
The Journal Sentinel’s survey of sheriff’s officials accounted for 56 of the 62 deaths of county inmates between 2012 and 2016. Officials in six counties didn’t respond to requests for information. About half the 56 deaths were due to suicide and
the other half resulted from medical issues.
None of the 56 death investigations has resulted in criminal charges against jail staff or inmates. Rather, the investigations more often reveal inadequate monitoring before an inmate’s suicide or poor medical care before a health emergency.
Some families fear that any mistakes by jail staff could be covered up by internal investigators. Those concerns were voiced last year in Milwaukee County when Clarke requested an outside investigation into one death at his jail — inmate Terrill Thomas, who died of dehydration — but opted to keep the other three investigations inhouse.
In all three of those cases, family members of the deceased said they had little to no confidence in Clarke’s office, citing the spate of deaths and his refusal to release information about the investigations. Leon Limon, whose 38-year-old sister, Kristina Fiebrink, died at the Milwaukee County Jail in August, said the Sheriff’s Office hasn’t contacted him once to discuss the investigation or a cause of death.
“Is the investigation going to be fair? Probably not,” Limon said. “With the way Sheriff Clarke is acting, who knows?”
All four investigations remain open. Prosecutors are reviewing the deaths of Thomas and a newborn, whose mother gave birth without any jail staff noticing, for possible criminal charges. It’s unclear who would be charged in either case, although this month prosecutors
indicated they may be pursuing felony charges against jail staff in the Thomas case for abuse or neglect of an inmate.
A desire for transparency
Several sheriff’s officials whose agencies requested outside investigations into jail deaths said there’s a simple reason for requesting them: transparency.
“I don’t want to be accused of any cover-ups,” said Monroe County Sheriff Scott Perkins, who required outside investigations after two jail deaths in the past two years.
The potential for conflicts of interest was a main reason why state legislators passed a law in 2014 requiring outside investigations into all deaths caused by law enforcement officials. That law, however, was largely targeted at officer-involved shooting deaths, and it didn’t require independent investigations into jail deaths.
Officials at agencies that didn’t request outside reviews of jail deaths said they’re sometimes not needed, particularly when an inmate has been in poor health or commits suicide. In Ashland County, for example, sheriff’s officials opted against an outside investigation into the death of 74-year-old Eugene Bell, who died in the hospital after a lengthy illness.
Some sheriff’s officials also noted the Wisconsin Department of Corrections reviews all jail deaths for possible violations of local and state policies.
“There’s already that check and balance in there,” said Wood County Sheriff’s Capt. Theodore Ashbeck, whose office had its own detectives investigate an inmate’s suicide in March 2016. Ashbeck fired a corrections officer as a result of the suicide, finding the officer failed to stop the inmate from hanging a sheet across the front of his cell, obscuring the view into his space.
The Department of Corrections review typically doesn’t start until months after an inmate’s death, and its staff isn’t required to re-interview all key witnesses. In one of the deaths at Perkins’ jail in Monroe County, for example, corrections staff didn’t re-interview the two inmates housed with a woman who hanged herself in a cell, according to department documents.
Scope of reviews vary
Among sheriff’s departments and offices that request outside investigations, the scope of the independent reviews can vary.
Many agencies request outside help immediately after a death, and leave the full investigation to independent investigators.
But in at least two counties, Outagamie and Ozaukee, local sheriff’s detectives conduct the initial investigation, then turn over their findings to an outside agency for a secondary review.
In Rock County, public pressure led sheriff’s officials to get an outside review of one jail death, but not another. After 38year-old Dante Wilson died of heart failure in August 2015, sheriff’s officials asked for a secondary review by Dane County investigators, who determined a nurse failed to properly treat Wilson. Eight months later, an outside investigation wasn’t sought when 45year-old Sheri Parker also died of heart failure hours after being released from a hospital.
“The only reason that somebody from the outside agency was requested was because the public was calling for it and we wanted to have complete transparency,” Rock County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Erik Chellevold said. “There wasn’t that push from the public or the media attention to the second death.”
In response to Clarke’s refusal to get outside investigations in jail deaths, the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted last month to support a state law requiring them in all cases. No such legislation has been introduced, but state Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said he’s in the early stage of drafting a bill.
“It’s important to make sure they’re looked at with scrutiny, and you don’t want to have the same people who were involved in the deaths investigating because of inherent perceptions of bias,” Larson said.
Several Milwaukeearea Democratic lawmakers have called for Clarke’s resignation following the deaths and his lack of communication about them. In a letter, Larson and two other lawmakers said the four families “lost their loved ones due to Clarke’s gross mismanagement” — even though no investigating agency has released any findings about whether jail staff contributed to any of the deaths.
Clarke, who declined to comment for this story, has generally been dismissive of complaints about his handling of the jail deaths.
Clarke has noted that two inmates — Michael Madden, 29, and Fiebrink — died of natural causes due to heart ailments and had extensive histories of drug use. An independent court-appointed monitor found jail staff failed to properly screen Fiebrink and place her on preventative detoxification protocol, though it’s unclear whether those mistakes contributed to her death.
Clarke hasn’t commented specifically about the deaths of Thomas and newborn Laliah Swayzer, whose cause of death has been listed as “undetermined” by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Larson said it’s too early to know whether any proposals would find support in the Republican-controlled Legislature. His bill would likely mirror the legislation enacted in 2013 to require outside investigations into officer-involved deaths.
“I think that’s the easiest fix, is to use that same metric that was tried and true in getting that first piece of legislation passed,” Larson said.