The mother of a dead inmate and the Southern Center for Human Rights continue to press their open records suit against the Department of Corrections for release of Farron Barksdale’s incident file, which might contain answers to troubling questions about his care while confined at Kilby Correctional Facility.
On Friday, Barksdale’s attorney, Jake Watson of Huntsville, answered the DOC’s motion for dismissal of the suit by pressing once more for answers as to the inmate’s care and treatment.
Questions raised in the plaintiffs’ answer to the DOC’s motion to dismiss are:
• What caused the bruising on Barksdale’s body?
• Was he adequately monitored?
• Did he complain of illness, and if so, did prison officials respond in a reasonable amount of time
• Was he unconscious for a long time before he was discovered?
• Were appropriate steps taken to revive him?
Barksdale died Aug. 20 in a Montgomery hospital 10 days after being found comatose in a cell at Kilby. An autopsy concluded that Barksdale died of pneumonia complicated by heat stroke says drug therapy likely contributed to the hyperthermia.
His body also showed bruising, but medical examiner Kenneth Snell said he does not believe the bruises were related to the cause of death.
Before he was arrested for the shooting deaths of two Athens Police officers on Jan. 2, 2004, Barksdale had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and involuntarily committed on several occasions.
During a 100-day stay at Taylor Hardin, physicians determined Barksdale was not paranoid schizophrenic, but that his problems were drug- and alcohol-induced, said Limestone County District Attorney Kristi Valls.
Barksdale was convicted of capital murder in a mini trial and sentenced to life without parole in August in Limestone County Circuit Court. He was transferred Aug. 8 to Kilby and was found in his cell Aug. 11 and taken to Baptist Medical Center South.
In its motion for dismissal, the DOC contends that a 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. Attorney General Troy King as issued a seven-page brief supporting Prison Commissioner Richard Allen’s stand.
Watson’s answer to the DOC said that the agency is melding its statutory rights to withhold investigative reports with the withholding of incident reports, which are not covered in the Alabama code and are open records.
Local News
Barksdale attorneys press open records case
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