By Kelly Kazek
The state Department of Corrections has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the mother of an Athens man who died after collapsing in a Montgomery prison in August.
The motion filed Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court states that the documents requested by the lawsuit are not public record and their release would have a “chilling effect on the investigative process.”
The suit requesting the documents was brought by Atlanta’s Southern Center for Human Rights and two Huntsville attorneys on behalf of Mary Barksdale of Athens, whose son Farron died Aug. 20, 10 days after being found comatose in his cell at Kilby Correctional Facility.
The suit also requests documents in the cases of six other inmates, all of whom claimed they were injured while housed at Donaldson Correctional Facility.
The DOC’s motion states that the state agency has immunity from such suits and that the documents sought by the suit — incident reports and medical records pertaining to Barksdale’s incarceration and subsequent collapse — do not fall under the Open Records Act.
Jake Watson, a Huntsville attorney who worked on Farron Barksdale’s defense, said his family has a right to know what happened to him. DOC officials, who say results of an autopsy are pending, have said the cause of the inmate’s death is a “mystery.”
“It’s mind boggling to me why the state would take that kind of position,” Watson said. “We think the public has a right to know, and so does the family.”
The DOC also filed a previous motion in the Barksdale case, asking the court on Sept. 28 to end court-ordered oversight in Barksdale’s medical care and death examination.
The state’s claims
Wednesday’s motion claims the defendants in the suit, the DOC and Commissioner Richard Allen, cannot be sued. The motion quotes Article 1, Section 14 of the state Constitution: “…the state of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity…A suit against a state agency or against state agents in their official capacities, is a suit against the state.”
The motion also claims the plaintiffs — Mary Barksdale and the six other inmates — cannot seek damages, including attorney’s fees, from a state agency.
One of the main objections to the suit outlined in the motion is the plaintiffs’ claim that prison records fall under the Open Records Act.
The motion states: “Several of these documents fall into various exceptions to the Open Records Act. Information contained in these documents would impact the security and safety of inmate and correctional officers. Information in the witness statements could lead to potential disturbances within the prison system. Inmates would retaliate against those who had made statements as to an incident. Disturbances would occur in the public as family members, friend, gang members, etc., retaliated against those persons in the free world that had made statements as to an incident.”
The motion also stated that Barksdale’s case, as well a case of one of the six other inmates, is still under investigation, making any documents pertaining to those cases sealed.
Mysterious death
Farron Barksdale was found comatose in his cell at Kilby Correctional Facility on Aug. 11, four days after his arrival to serve a sentence of life without parole for killing Athens Police Officer Tony Mims and Sgt. Larry Russell on Jan. 2, 2004.
Barksdale died 10 days later at age 32 at Baptist Medical Center South. DOC spokesman Brian Corbett said Farron had symptoms of a systemic infection — fever and high white blood cell count —upon arriving at the hospital. His body was also bruised, but Corbett said there was no evidence of an altercation at the prison. He said bruises could have been self-inflicted or caused by trauma, an accident or the infection.
An autopsy was ordered to determine the cause of death.
On Sept. 7, two employees of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery told a News Courier reporter the autopsy was “closed,” meaning completed, but on Sept. 11, the pathologist who performed the autopsy said that was not true and that the autopsy would not be made public until the report was completed.
The DOC has been investigating its agency and the cause of Barksdale’s death since it occurred. In September, Allen said via letter that he contacted the Alabama Bureau of Investigation to ask for help in investigating the case.
