According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, a 29-year-old inmate with a history of schizophrenia was held naked and alone in a dirty cell at an Indiana prison for nearly two weeks before he died in 2021.
Joshua McLemore’s estate is seeking to hold “Defendants accountable for his unnecessary pain and suffering and death,” including Jackson County, Sheriff Rick Meyer, three jail employees, a doctor and Advanced Correctional Healthcare, a medical care provider for the Jackson County Jail.
McLemore was receiving care at the Schneck Medical Center in Seymour, Ind., when he was arrested for pulling a nurse’s hair, per the lawsuit. Upon arrival at the jail, he was “immediately placed... in a small, windowless, padded isolation cell, where he remained confined, naked, alone, and in a constant state of psychosis for the next 20 days.”
Video obtained by CNN and The Appeal shows McLemore naked in his cell.
He had a history of both schizophrenia and substance abuse, the lawsuit said, and he was at Scheck because he was “suffering from an acute mental health crisis.” While in custody at Jackson County Jail, McLemore would often spill food due to his mental state, leaving his room filthy, the suit explained.
“The food and trash were often mixed with urine or feces because Josh urinated and defecated on his floor,” it said. “Although there was a bathroom attached to his cell, jail staff kept the door locked virtually the entire time Josh was there.”
Per the United Nations, the Mandela rules for treatment of prisoners stipulate that solitary confinement “may only be imposed in exceptional circumstances, and ‘prolonged’ solitary confinement of more than 15 consecutive days is regarded as a form of torture.”
“The only times Josh got to leave his cell were when guards would forcibly remove him and strap him into restraint devices so they could put him under a shower and clean his cell,” the suit claimed.
Another complication of McLemore’s mental state was its effect on his eating habits.
“When Josh entered the Jackson County Jail, he weighed 197.8 pounds and appeared fit and robust,” said the suit. By the time that he died, McLemore lost around 45 pounds, it added.
When he was sent to the hospital, McLemore’s “condition was so dire that the local hospital did not have the clinical resources to treat him and he had to be airlifted to a larger hospital in Cincinnati where he died two days later,” according to the suit. “The official autopsy revealed his immediate cause of death: ‘Multiple organ failure due to refusal to eat or drink with altered mental status due to untreated schizophrenia.’”
Advanced Correctional Healthcare said in a statement to CNN that it was not allowed to disclose patient information, but that it “is proud to have a 95% client retention rate,” that it “has a reputation for solving problems by doing the right thing the first time,” and that it has saved 52 patient lives over the past year.
CNN also reached out to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for comment. As of Thursday afternoon, it had not published a comment from the office.
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