Mary Barksdale’s Open Records Act suit against the state Department of Corrections is set for trial August 11, according to Sarah Geraghty, an attorney for Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta.
Barksdale, mother of the late Farron Barksdale, who died after being incarcerated at Kilby Correctional Facility a year ago, is seeking access to her son’s prison records, which DOC officials contend do not fall under the Open Records Act.
Farron Barksdale died in a Montgomery hospital at the age of 32 on Aug. 20, 2007, 11 days after he was found comatose in his cell at the Montgomery prison. He had been transferred to Kilby from Limestone County Jail on Aug. 8, three days before he was discovered in his cell. He had pleaded guilty in July 2007 to the 2004 shooting deaths of two Athens Police officers.
An autopsy concluded Farron Barksdale died of pneumonia complicated by heat stroke and that drug therapy likely contributed to the hyperthermia.
Barksdale is being represented by Huntsville attorney Jake Watson.
“As far as we know right now, the trial will be held as scheduled,” said Watson Friday. “They (attorneys for the DOC) have filed a motion for a continuance, but the judge has not answered it.”
Since filing the open records suit, Mary Barksdale, filed suit in early June in U.S. District Court in Montgomery against employees of the DOC and two prison doctors. Barksdale claims a doctor administered medication known to cause heat intolerance while her son was being housed in an isolation cell in 100-plus-degree heat with no air-conditioning.
Named as defendants in the suit are former Kilby warden Arnold Holt, Kilby physicians Dr. Michael Robbins and Dr. Joseph McGinn, two correctional facility officers who are not identified by name, and two prison medical and mental health services personnel who are not identified by name. Four of the defendants could not be named because attorneys have not had access to prison records, a SCHR spokeswoman explained.
Local News
Trial in Barksdale suit set Aug. 11
Efforts to gain access to prison records
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