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Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest, no trial

G

Gonad the Barbarian

Lifer
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...n-spends-2-years-in-solitary-after-dwi-arrest

A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night.

"'[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."

Slevin's medical problems extended beyond his dental issues, he said. His toenails started curling around his foot because they were so long, he told KOB.com. And his countless requests to see a doctor for depression medication were ignored, he said.

He said his lawsuit "has never been about the money. I've always wanted this to make a statement."

The $22 million settlement, awarded by a federal jury Tuesday, is one of the largest prisoner civil rights settlements in U.S. history, according to KOB.com.

"I wanted people to know that there are people at The Dona Ana County Jail that are doing things like this to people and getting away with it," said Slevin, who now suffers from PTSD and believes he will have to take medication for life as a result. "Why they did what they did, I have no idea."

The mistreatment started from the moment his client was arrested, Slevin's attorney, Matt Coyte, told msnbc.com.

"He was driving through New Mexico and arrested for a DWI, and he allegedly was in a stolen vehicle. Well, it was a car he had borrowed from a friend; a friend had given him a car to drive across the country," Coyte said.
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More at link:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2...n-spends-2-years-in-solitary-after-dwi-arrest

How does something like this even happen?
 
Because the people that have the power and the authority, the government officials and bureaucrats responsible for the criminal justice system in that place fucked up by the numbers. If you put your trust in the government, this is what you get.
 
Based on the news story, this is a boggling outrage that demands investigation by a higher authority - state and/or federal - corrective measures, and likely prosecution.
 
A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.
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😱 I'd pull a tooth for $22 million.
 
monovillage said:
Because the people that have the power and the authority, the government officials and bureaucrats responsible for the criminal justice system in that place fucked up by the numbers. If you put your trust in the government, this is what you get.
Click to expand...

To make another exception reading/replying to monovillage, this is a good example of how misguided the right is.

Are we going to get rid of police and jails to prevent this, no more government?

Hardly, and what a disaster that would be.

No, this is a case showing how that beloved 'local government' of the right can have something monstrous happen and we we need good and strong central government to be available to put in place regulation and prevent it and take corrective measures when the local government fails.

In other words people like him are a disaster who would make this far more frequent.

'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' We fought a lot of these battles in the 60's, when we had things like local governments where whites basically could not be convicted of crimes against blacks - getting 12 white jurors to vote for conviction, with the local government sympathetic to the white and generally not bringing charges in the first place - was an ongoing issue that had to be fought by the federal government, led by Robert Kennedy as attorney general.

Yet we have these simpletons who are seduced by an anti-government ideology; we need vigilance against government excess, but these nuts go far past that.
 
Craig234 said:
Based on the news story, this is a boggling outrage that demands investigation by a higher authority - state and/or federal - corrective measures, and likely prosecution.
Click to expand...

It happened in 2005-2007, it's an old case. I'm sure the government authorities that investigated other government authorities said how horrible it was, but no person is actually to blame.
Then they added another layer of government bureaucracy with high paying administrative costs to oversee the current administration. Then commissioned a study to look into civil rights abuses, but decided they needed to hire some consultants to do a check of their study.
The 22 million this guy is getting is cheap compared to how much it's going to cost to change absolutely nothing with further government action.
 
is the money is? people responsible should get 10 years jail time for kidnapping, torture, wrongful imprisonment etc
 
start with a few people. some will rage, most won't care. do it to more people. few will rage, majority won't give a shit. eventually you will get numb to the idea and not care at all. until it happens to you. your rights are being taken away right under your nose :sneaky:
 
Craig234 said:
To make another exception reading/replying to monovillage, this is a good example of how misguided the right is.

Are we going to get rid of police and jails to prevent this, no more government?

Hardly, and what a disaster that would be.

No, this is a case showing how that beloved 'local government' of the right can have something monstrous happen and we we need good and strong central government to be available to put in place regulation and prevent it and take corrective measures when the local government fails.

In other words people like him are a disaster who would make this far more frequent.

'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.' We fought a lot of these battles in the 60's, when we had things like local governments where whites basically could not be convicted of crimes against blacks - getting 12 white jurors to vote for conviction, with the local government sympathetic to the white and generally not bringing charges in the first place - was an ongoing issue that had to be fought by the federal government, led by Robert Kennedy as attorney general.

Yet we have these simpletons who are seduced by an anti-government ideology; we need vigilance against government excess, but these nuts go far past that.
Click to expand...

More fail by Craig. If we need big federal government to police local government, who polices the federal government? World government? Who polices the world government? Citizens? If citizens can't police the local government, what makes you think they can police a world government? At that point you just end up with institutionalized abuse at a world scale.

This is the failure that big government stooges can't get past.
 
The story is really light on details. I suspect that he was seriously mentally ill and didn't have the wherewithal to ask for a lawyer or to use the means available to him through the legal system.

Off course none of that excuses the government's behavior but it's the only explanation I can come up with for how this could possibly happen.
 
Inexcusable.

Somebody needs to be prosecuted.

I'm surprised his family didn't have any success getting this resolved sooner.

Fern
 
How can you tell a progressive from a conservative? When the government screws up big time the progressive says "what we need is more government". When the government screws up big time the conservative says "we need a smaller and more accountable government."

I will freely admit that I am biased in the direction of a smaller and more accountable government.
 
monovillage said:
Because the people that have the power and the authority, the government officials and bureaucrats responsible for the criminal justice system in that place fucked up by the numbers. If you put your trust in the government, this is what you get.
Click to expand...

Yeah, let's generalize about government based on another anecdote! I vote we don't stop there because that is an arbitrary stopping point. We should generalize this to a distrust of all homo sapiens.
 
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Fern said:
Inexcusable.

Somebody needs to be prosecuted.

I'm surprised his family didn't have any success getting this resolved sooner.

Fern
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Was wondering about that myself. Guessing he didn't have a family to speak up for him? This sounds like a classic Kafkaesque nightmare.
 
Craig234 said:
Based on the news story, this is a boggling outrage that demands investigation by a higher authority - state and/or federal - corrective measures, and likely prosecution.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily a good idea. Last year the SCOTUS overturned a jury verdict ($14M) in the case of a man who had been wrongly convicted of armed robbery, and had spent 18 years in prison, 14 of which were on death row. -> Connick v. Thompson (PDF) There are similar decisions in other contexts (e.g. retaliation damages), rendered by the proud conservative 5 of the SCOTUS.
 
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