Suit against guards at jail can proceed

BANGOR – A federal magistrate judge has recommended that the wrongful death suit against two Somerset County correctional officers over a suicide three years ago at the Somerset County Jail go forward.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk also wrote that a third corrections officer, Somerset County Sheriff Barry Delong and the county itself could not be sued. A trial date in the case has not been set.

Joseph Hayes, 20, of Skowhegan was found on July 27, 2002, hanging from a bedsheet in a cellblock where he was the only prisoner. He had been held for two weeks in the Somerset County Jail in Skowhegan on a probation violation.

His mother, Mary Martin of Skowhegan, filed the suit in July 2004 in U.S. District Court in Bangor. She is seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and an unspecified amount in punitive damages.

The lawsuit claimed that Delong and corrections officers John Davis, Frederick Hartley and Daniel Rivard were deliberately indifferent to Hayes’ mental state and therefore wrongfully caused his death.

Hayes was under close watch, or special management, at the time of his death because he previously had attempted suicide at the jail, according to the complaint.

The day Hayes died, “he became rowdy and threw something at the glass window between the control room and the holding cell,” the complaint stated.

The lawsuit alleged that Davis pulled down the window shade and was unable to watch Hayes by video monitor or through the window. The lawsuit also alleges that the customs and practices at the jail violated state law and resulted in “reckless and deliberate indifference to the safety and constitutional rights” of Hayes.

The claims outlined in the suit against the sheriff, Davis and Hartley concerned events that led up to the hanging and immediately after Hayes was discovered. The claim against Rivard dealt solely with efforts to revive Hayes before emergency personnel arrived.

Kravchuk said that a jury should decide whether Hartley and Davis knew Hayes was a suicide risk on July 27 and, if he was, whether the jail guards unreasonably disregarded that risk.

She also wrote that the evidence did not support the claim of indifference in the actions the three corrections officers took after Hayes was discovered hanging in the cell.

Kravchuk’s 31-page recommended decision is subject to review by U.S. District Judge John Woodcock.