Parsons v Ryan: Suicide Prevention Day, 2012, AZ DOC.

Remembering the suicide victims of Jan Brewer 

and Charles Ryan at the Arizona Department of Corrections.

 

 "SOS from Arizona's Other Death Row"

Firehouse Gallery and Cafe, Phoenix

June 2012

This is the state of suicide prevention in Arizona's Department of Corrections, under Director Charles Ryan. I hope the DOC responds to this critique with a detailed description of what else they're doing to reduce the rate of despair and violence that's driving Arizona prisoners to kill themselves at twice the rate than the national average for state prisoners. I want to know what the training consists of. So do the families who have already suffered a death in custody - as well as the loved ones of those mentally ill prisoners fighting to be safe and well in custody now. How have the conditions described below changed since Parsons v Ryan was filed?

If you have a loved one in prison with a serious mental illness whose safety or sanity you fear deeply for, please feel free to contact me. I'm just an artist and activist - I'm not a lawyer or professional anything, but I can refer you to resources in your community, and connect you with other families who share your struggle. 

Have your loved ones write me as well. 

Arizona Prison Watch  /  PO Box 20494  / PHOENIX, AZ 85036

thank you again to all the attorneys working on this case...but most of all, to the prisoner-litigants who had the courage to put their names and faces to the abuses and neglect going on behind bars in this state...

Peggy Plews 

480-580-6807

arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com

Parsons V Ryan (p. 47)

2. Defendants Deprive Suicidal and Self-Harming Prisoners of Basic Mental Health Care

82. Defendants have a policy and practice of housing prisoners with serious mental health needs in unsafe conditions that heighten their risk of suicide. In FY 2011, there were 13 suicides in ADC prisons, out of a population that averaged 34,000 during that time. That is a rate of 38 suicides per 100,000 prisoners per year, more than double the national average suicide rate in state prisons of 16.67 per 100,000. Three prisoners committed suicide in one week in late January 2012, including a 19-year-old woman.

83. One factor responsible for such a high suicide rate is Defendants’ policy and practice of maintaining suicide watch facilities that offer no meaningful treatment. Usually the only people who interact with prisoners on suicide watch are correctional officers who check on them periodically, medication assistants who dispense pills, or psychology assistants who talk to them through the front of their cell. Plaintiff Swartz did not receive psychotherapy for more than two months in the summer of 2011 while on suicide watch at the Lewis facility. After he swallowed glass and was taken to an outside hospital, the hospital psychiatrist recommended that he be taken to an inpatient mental health unit. These units are in the Phoenix complex. Instead, Mr. Swartz remained at Lewis where he continued to harm himself. He finally was moved to the Phoenix inpatient unit almost three months after the hospital psychiatrist had made that recommendation, but after a short period of time he was again returned to Lewis. Plaintiff Thomas did not see a psychiatrist for 11 months despite being placed on suicide watch multiple times.

84. Defendants also have a policy and practice of holding suicidal and mentally ill prisoners in conditions that violate all notions of minimally adequate mental health care and basic human dignity, and are not compatible with civilized standards of humanity and decency. Suicide watch cells are often filthy, with walls and food slots smeared with other prisoners’ blood and feces, reeking of human waste. Mental health staff show a lackof professionalism and little compassion for prisoners enduring these conditions: for example, prisoners in suicide cells are taunted for being in “the feces cells.” When Plaintiff Swartz complained to a LPN about the unhygienic conditions of the suicide cell at Lewis, the LPN described him in the mental health notes from the encounter as “bitching about cleanliness – germs and disease.”

85. Defendants have a policy and practice of keeping suicide watch cells at very cold temperatures. Prisoners are stripped of all clothing and given only a stiff suicide smock and a thin blanket, making the extreme cold even harder to tolerate. Plaintiffs Rodriguez and Verduzco report that the suicide smock used in Perryville barely comes to the top of female prisoners’ thighs, so both their legs and arms are exposed to cold air. Many prisoners are also deprived of mattresses and as a result must sleep on bare steel bed frames, or on the floor made filthy with the bodily fluids of prior inhabitants. Plaintiff Brislan spent several weeks in a frigid suicide cell with no mattress.

86. Defendants have a policy and practice of exposing prisoners on suicide watch to gratuitously harsh, degrading, and damaging conditions of confinement. Prisoners are given only two cold meals a day, and are denied the opportunity to go outside, brush their teeth, or take showers. The only monitoring prisoners receive in suicide watch is when correctional officers force them awake every ten to 30 minutes, around the clock, ostensibly to check on their safety. In some suicide cells, bright lights are left on 24 hours a day. The resulting inability to sleep aggravates the prisoners’ psychological distress.

87. Mentally ill prisoners on suicide watch complain of correctional staff behavior that interferes with any therapeutic effect of being on suicide watch, including harassment, insults and taunts, and the excessive and practically sporting use of pepper spray. Prisoners at the Perryville suicide watch units, including Plaintiff Verduzco, have jerked awake when awoken by staff on the “safety checks,” and are pepper sprayed for allegedly attempting to assault the officers. Guards in the Perryville suicide watch units also frequently pepper spray female prisoners in their eyes and throats when they are delusional or hallucinating. Plaintiffs Rodriguez and Verduzco have asthma and rely upon inhalers, and they have had asthma attacks from the regular use of pepper spray in the women’s suicide watch unit. On multiple occasions after she was pepper sprayed in the eyes, nose, and mouth, Ms. Verduzco was dragged to a shower, stripped naked, and sprayed with extremely cold water to rinse away the pepper spray; she was then left naked to wait for a new vest and blanket. A prisoner in the Florence prison’s suicide watch unit reports that while there he was handed razor blades to swallow by other prisoners, and told “just die right away.” He started to swallow the blades, and security staff pepper sprayed him while he coughed up blood, and did not provide other emergency response.

88. Defendants’ policy and practice of holding suicidal prisoners in excessively harsh conditions does not prevent but rather promotes self-injurious behavior. Plaintiff Brislan has cut himself numerous times with razors and pieces of metal while on suicide watch at multiple prisons, including Tucson, Lewis, and Eyman’s SMU 1 and Browning units. At the Tucson prison, staff put him on suicide watch in a cell with broken glass on the floor which he used to cut himself. During another stay in suicide watch, Mr. Brislan was given a razor blade that he used to deeply lacerate both of his thighs. While on suicide watch in the Lewis prison during the summer of 2011, Plaintiff Swartz, on separate occasions, swallowed multiple foreign objects, including two large staples, plastic wrap, a piece of glass, a lead-head concrete nail, a spork, two pens, sharpened paper clips, a metal spring, a steel bolt, and two copper wires. As with Plaintiff Brislan, Mr. Swartz’s repeated suicidal gestures and ability to access dangerous objects while on suicide watch confirms that he was not being properly monitored and that any mental health treatment he might have been receiving was inadequate.

89. Defendants also have a policy and practice of improperly using the suicide watch cells to punish prisoners for alleged disciplinary infractions. An Eyman prisoner who went on a hunger strike to protest prison policies, but did not display signs of mental illness or distress, was put in a suicide watch cell for several weeks and was told by a mental health provider, “If you weren’t on this hunger strike, you wouldn’t have to live in the feces cell.”

Deaths in custody: Who serves survivors of state violence?

I wrote the following letter to the administrator for the Arizona Department of Corrections' Victims Services programs about six weeks ago now, with no response to it from anyone there. As I explained at the time, the questions I pose are not rhetorical - I really need help for Dana Seawright's mom. She was devastated by his homicide last July, and is now being victimized by Brewercare and the AHCCCS cuts, and the ADC can't even give me an idea of where to turn to for help for her?

What gives, Chuck? Why the stone wall in response to a victim's need for assistance? I wasn't calling your people out into the street with this- I was putting up a white flag and begging for assistance for the family of a man who was murdered in ADC's custody.

You put two guards on Dana 24/7 when he was chained to a bed in a coma, but had no one watching out for him when he was attacked by the West Side City Crips for faking a hit on a Mexican he was ordered by them to do. You should be supporting resistance to gang violence, not reinforcing it that way. Your investigators knew well enough the motives of the killers to tell his mother "if it's any consolation, they didn't mean to kill him", but you daren't clear enough on their identities such that you will refer them for prosecution - and no one on your staff was culpable for looking away while this man was beaten senseless in a open dorm? Wasn't he supposed to be in protective segregation when that happened, too?

What's so problematic about letting this woman get back to me with some resources for her? Are they hoping she collapses altogether before her lawsuit against the state goes anywhere? Can't they let the Victims' Services people do their job unimpeded by their politics and power moves?

C'mon, Chuck Ryan: serve all the victims of violence here, not just the ones you can use to pack more people into your prisons with. At least don't hoard all the resources for them where people like Kini Seawright can't get to them herself - she's not about to walk through your door asking for help after you let her kid get killed. I'm here of my own volition for all of them, including the mothers who haven't had to survive such a horrible, heartbreaking loss yet. Please have your people get back to me on this.

To the rest of you watching this all go down, take note of this resource, question with legislators and policy-makers the constitutional denial of victims' rights to people in custody, and help me find out who serves the traumatized victims of state abuse, neglect, and violence - as well as their survivors.

Keep agitating with the Department of Justice for a CRIPA investigation, and use the resources on this site (and below) to send info into prisoners about how to fight for their own rights before we end up having to find their survivors wrongful death attorneys. Tell them they aren't alone in there, and to hang on for dear life. Their fight, if they grieve conditions and file complaints with the DOJ and ACLU regardless of the hopelessness of it all, regardless of the threats and retaliation, may well be the one that finally stops these death rates from climbing, and the despair inside from consuming too many more salvageable lives.

--------------------------------

For the most part, living prisoners will find that they have to litigate their claims pro per (themselves). So, here are some links to resources to print stuff up from and send to them:

Here's the form to file a 1983 CR complaint in Federal District Court.

Here's the National ACLU's prisoner rights' page.

Here's the AZ ACLU's resources page.

Here's the National Lawyer's Guild/Columbia Law Review Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook.

And here's the scoop on the hoops and barriers to justice set up by the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

-----------------

April 19, 2011

Jan Upchurch, Administrator
Office of Victims' Services
Arizona Department of Corrections
1645 W. Jefferson - MC250
Phoenix, AZ 85007


Dear Ms. Upchurch;

I am a human rights activist, artist and blogger in Phoenix, and have been researching violence and suicide in AZ state prisons over the course of the past 2 years. This has opened my eyes and brought me into considerable more contact with victims of violent crime in ADC custody and their survivors than most members of the public. Do prisoners or the family members of prisoners qualify for victims' services through your office if they/their loved ones are crime victims while imprisoned at the ADC? If not, who advocates for them when prisoners are assaulted, raped, murdered, or neglected and abused (as in the case of Marcia Powell)? Additionally, who fights for policy changes that may prevent further victimization behind bars?

Many of those I see victimized at the ADC are evidently psychiatrically or developmentally disabled, and can't advocate for safer cellmates or protective segregation, or fight abusive COs or policies effectively through the grievance process or other formal systems - which arguably gives rise to more self-injurious behavior and violence out of frustration or sheer terror, a liability even if their inability to access legitimate processes keeps down the grievances and potential lawsuits. Mentally ill prisoners don't seem to be served by either DES' Protective Services Division or the AZ Center for Disability Law when victimized in custody, either. In fact, I believe all parties I just mentioned are in direct violation of the American with Disabilities Act and/or other federal mandates, as they pertain to disabled individuals victimized in custody, regardless of the AZ constitutional limits on their rights as crime victims, per se.

Furthermore, the perpetrators of prison violence and other institutionally-based crime - be they staff or inmate - are apparently seldom street-charged or prosecuted, suggesting that neither the CIU nor county attorneys hosting prisons take an aggressive role in promoting the rights of victims in custody, which seems to just tell criminals that it's who they victimize, not what they do to others, that really matters. How does the ADC plan to rectify that?

Given what we spend to keep people locked up, prison is the one place in society where crime should be under control and victims are promptly and professionally accommodated. I see no one who prisoners or families can go to out here when violent crime befalls them in prison, though - without being charged a fee for advocacy or counseling - which means these victims are easily victimized (and perhaps criminalized) again, if you don't serve them either. Even the Attorney General won't help them - he defends the ADC.

These are pointed questions, I know, but they are not rhetorical. I imagine there may be a conflict of interest with your office, but that shouldn't preclude a third party providing those services under contract with the state, just like they do for other crime victims and their families. I need this info ASAP in order to advise people who were victimized (or survived homicides of prisoners) in ADC custody of what resources are available to them; at least one grieving mother I've heard from is living on the verge of homelessness and I'm not sure where to refer her.

I see this as a serious problem underlying the continuation of prison violence, especially against vulnerable adults, made so by the symptoms of their disabilities. James Jennings is a tragic example of someone clearly killed because of their mental illness; both Shannon Palmer and his killer, Jasper Rushing, were reportedly pleading for protection - and both somewhat psychotic - when they were celled so fatefully together. Duron Cunningham reported that he was raped and assaulted before he killed himself. The list goes on.

I plan to begin a public education campaign in the coming weeks to address the issue of victims' rights (or lack thereof, under the state constitution) in custody, particularly as they apply (or don't) to surviving family members. The ADC can hinder that effort with propaganda obscuring the victimization of prisoners, help advance the field of victims' services by exploring and answering these questions thoughtfully, or do nothing but get out of the way. I invite your office into a dialogue about it, however, as I want to believe you serve for good reason. I don't know whether protecting the state or our citizens is your primary concern, though, as I don't know you. It should not have to be mutually exclusive, but seems to be given the litigation expected to follow incidents of violent crime against persons in custody.

Taking responsibility for the harm one causes or allows to be caused to another is part of the ethos of the criminal justice system. Making amends to victims - individuals, businesses, and communities, is seen as central to any kind of restorative justice, which the State of Arizona heartily endorses, as evidenced by the practice of ordering restitution when sentencing, and penalizing offenders further for failing to meet said orders. What does the ADC practice, when it comes to their own crime victims, though? Even if prisoners have no rights as victims, what about the principle of preventing future crime by making an example of perpetrators today? Why should violent criminals be provided with such blanket permission to practice on more victims before they leave prison, where they are supposedly being punished?

How the ADC deals with this issue is not just an internal affair - it has implications for all of us, as one of Pete Calleros' suspected killers went on to assault staff and another prisoner in the months that followed - he must have been emboldened by the lack of institutional response to the Calleros hit as a crime. Another suspect was paroled in the fall - he already has a warrant (it appears the court doesn't know where he is). He was never even given a ticket in association with Pete's murder, and appears to have been released with time he still could have served. One would wonder if he wasn't being rewarded. None of the four men were charged with anything - the killing was even left as a suicide - which they were identified by more than one prisoner as staging. One of them is even in there for being a gang leader, begging the question as to who, exactly, is in control of the ADC these days.

I'm well aware that if I publicly go after seeing those 4 guys prosecuted, I could end up a more likely target than they would be for being identified by me as killing Pete - when we have to fear the reach of gang members from behind prison walls, public safety is already compromised. The ADC appears to have done nothing to get justice for Pete or prevent his killers from hurting anyone else, so I don't have much confidence that anything was done to protect the guys who reported his death as a homicide, either. Please check up on the safety of those witnesses now.

None of this bodes well for how I see the prison privatization project going: the ADC is responsible for Kingman's lack of security, ultimately, and I saw nothing in the RFPs that were put out that indicates a particular concern for victims' rights. In fact, the objective set down by the ADC of making sure that no more than 1% of grievances are ultimately upheld troubles me. Correct me if I read that wrong: it just seems like an incentive to deprive prisoners of due process rights when they are harmed, not to protect them. There's no indication that private prisons would even issue press releases about prisoner deaths or abuse, or be accountable for their health and safety to the public in any transparent way. They're harder to see into than the state prisons are, giving rise to more risk of victimization.

I'm sure that given your position, you can understand my frustration and concern over the constitutionally-diminished value of prisoner's lives and the gravity of their suffering in custody, placing their very survival secondary to the state's interests in cutting costs. It manifests toxins at every level of society, such that ugliness flows from the community into the media whenever a prisoner kills themselves - look at the "comments" after every ADC press release on a suicide. It's tragic, what has become of us since the PLRA and the victims' rights amendments to state constitutions were made exempting prisoners from fundamental protections: our entire society has devolved, and I think I can make the connections.

I also think I can make the case that both these prisoners and their families are deserving of the same constitutional guarantees given all other citizens and non-citizens alike, when it comes to their welfare. Having fought most of my life to keep my own brother out of prison and harm's way - surviving the devastating suicide of a loved one myself, in the process - I'm free to tell that part of my own story, liberating others from the shame that may keep them from telling theirs. I have been a victim of violent crime, and cope now with a mood disorder and the remnants of PTSD; not much frightens me anymore. I've embraced the mothers of ADC's homicide victims, and helped my community bury our dead; I am intimately connected to this struggle. I will not relent until I know that AZ prisoners and their loved ones are getting their needs met, not brutalized, at my expense, in my name, for the sake of my own family's illusion of "safety".

Sorry to greet you so early with this level of frankness, but you seemed like an appropriate person to bring into the conversation. I appreciate your time and what thoughts you may have. I look forward to hearing back from you or Ms. Klausner on this matter soon.


Sincerely,


Peggy Plews

--

Margaret J. Plews, Editor
Arizona Prison Watch
P.O. Box 20494
Phoenix, AZ 85036
480-580-6807


"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness, and our ability to tell our own stories..."

- Arundhati Roy

Arizona Prison Watch
http://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.com
Prison Abolitionist
http://prisonabolitionist.blogspot.com
Hard Time Alliance - AZ
http://hardtimehepc.blogspot.com
Arizona Juvenile Prison Watch
http://azjuvenileprisonwatch.blogspot.com

Survivors of Prison Violence - AZ
http://azprisonsurvivors.blogspot.com

Suicide/homicide rates skyrocket at AZ Department of Corrections

I obtained prisoner death records last week from the AZ Department of Corrections, and the stats on suicides and homicides since Brewer took office are mind-boggling: they're twice the rate as they were when Janet was governor; this fiscal year (beginning July 2010) the suicides are on track for being three times the annual rate.

In no instance of the recent suicides has there been documentation that ADC staff had any culpability - though I've had more than one family member tell me that their mentally ill loved one had been taken off of their psychiatric medications in prisons before their suicide or homicide. That sounds to me like a pattern of institutional neglect.

Anthony Lester's death remains a mystery to me, by the way - the ADC record detailing his death lists his injuries as self-inflicted (his jugular, his right wrist, and his leg were all cut with a razor) , but a document compiling the deaths for the year calls it a homicide. Tony's family was told it was a suicide - a "highly preventable" one, which they tried to warn the ADC he was at risk for. They have other information suggesting that he believed he was in imminent danger from a gang, though. Until I get confirmation to the contrary, I'm leaving him in the suicide category.

Tony suffered from schizophrenia, and was sentenced to more than a decade in prison due to two women being slightly injured trying to prevent him from cutting his throat (both required band-aids at the scene) during a psychotic episode. He had to be restored to sanity before he could go on trial, of course. That's par for Maricopa County's treatment of people with mental illness who needed psychiatric hospitalization before or at the time of their "crime". If I could sick the DOJ on every responsible judge and prosecuting attorney, I would, because that's a violation of the Olmstead Decision, as far as I'm concerned. The Olmstead Decision was a Supreme Court verdict that determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to deinstitutionalize and place people with disabilities in the least restrictive setting possible.

Arizona, after 20 years of Arnold v. Sarn litigation, is still underserving the seriously mentally ill in the community. Here they're just criminally prosecuted for the symptoms of their illness and thrown into the most restrictive setting possible - state prison (often maximum security) - largely because the state lacks adequate outpatient and inpatient alternatives for individuals at risk of harming themselves or others (we spend it all on corrections instead. If ADC Director Ryan had any courage, he'd call that what it is and tell the state where to put their money and the courts where to stuff their convictions).

Why else would a judge give a man with schizophrenia three years for climbing a utility tower in a thunderstorm to be closer to God? Why would he even be prosecuted for that in the first place? I think they actually believed they were protecting him from himself. Sadly, Shannon Palmer ended up being murdered by his cellmate two years in.

The deaths by "natural causes" are also extremely young - go to the ADC's website, under ADC in the News, for death notices. There's an archive on that page, too. I suspect that it's complications from the effects of the Hep C virus that's killing people so young inside. I'll be analyzing the documents I obtained further to confirm that, and post it when I compile it all.

Here are the links for the APW posts about the more recent suicides:

Special Management Unit: Prisoner suicide at ASPC Eyman (11/4) - James Galloway

Prison suicide and gangs at Florence Central (10/01) - Duron Cunningham, Rosario Rodriguez-Bojorquez


Additionally, I missed a couple of suicides in my compilation that I didn't have info on until now:

Douglas Nunn 33 (8/29/09) - ASPC-Florence/Central

Patricia Velez 25 (4/28/10) - ASPC-Perryville/Lumley

All 3 of the women who have killed themselves in the past year and a half hung themselves and were housed in Lumley, where the maximum security yard is. All three were in their 20s. I don't know if Patricia had a mental illness or not: a psychological report was sealed by the court when she was sentenced to 7.5 years for aggravated assault and fleeing a law enforcement vehicle. Geshell and Sasha, the other two women from Lumley who killed themselves, did have evidence of a serious mental illness when sentenced.

Two of the men who killed themselves recently were both from ASPC-Florence/Central. The largest number of male suicides in any one prison have occurred at ASPC-Eyman, however.

Sometime in the next couple of days I'll break down the suicides and homicides by race and age, and tell you how they compare to stats for the overall prison population, as well as to rates in the general population. It seems to me that if all the violence boiled down to a gang war, the Aryan Brotherhood is winning.

Julie Acklin: Tenacious advocate for prisoner's rights.

Julie Acklin (holding photo of son Davon)
with the Arizona Liver Foundation staff/volunteers.

Anyone who's read more than just a few blurbs on this blog should know who Julie and Davon Acklin are, by now. What follows is just one story of how Julie's touched others' lives for the better. I pulled it off of her Facebook - her friend Verena posted it there to remind her of how much she means to those of us who know her, and to ignore the skeptics and haters who occasionally land on her pages and try to sabotage her efforts to assure decent medical care for her son. I've met Verena and her daughter, and know this story to be true.

------------------------

Sunday, September 6, 2010

Hey Julie,

We love you, and the ones that truly know you know what you are capable of.

Here is my story of my beautiful daughter who almost died at the hands of Texas Prisons. My daughter was 21 and on 9/9/09, first let me tell you she suffers from a mental illness. She had been on suicide watch numerous times; she was in the treatment part of the prison for substance abuse and behavioral health issues. She stands only maximum of 5 foot 2in, and very petite.

A couple of weeks before I received a call, my daughter called me from her counselor's office. I asked my daughter if I could speak to her counselor, my daughter handed the counselor the phone, I tried to give the counselor the information on what my daughter needed to work on and the counselor hid behind the HIPPA law stating that she could not take any information from me regarding my daughter. I informed her I wasn’t seeking information but felt it necessary so my daughter could be treated for these issues. Remember HIPPA Laws state that you can receive information, but the professional can not give it with out a written Release of Information, or verbal permission from the patient. My daughter handed her the phone that was a verbal.

I received a call from the Warden, a few weeks later telling me my daughter is on life support, when I asked what happened she told me she hung herself. I lost it. Now I’ve lost control, and going insane it felt like, the warden told me I needed to get to Texas, ASAP. So I contacted my Mother and we left for Texas. I had to see my daughter on what they call a High Five ventilator. I guess it shoots 300 breaths in to the patient; my understanding was they said it’s the most intense ventilator they had.

While at the hospital the Dr. told me that my daughter had a 9 % chance to live. I had to leave Tx and come back home. I had not heard of Julie until I got back - I think one of my friends called her or knew of her. When I got back from Tx, I received a call from Julie telling me she is a prisoner rights advocate for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). She asked me what happened and all I could do is cry.

Julie was so patient with me, and so understanding with me, she provided me with hope, which I lost in Tx. Julie kept in touch to see how I’m doing on a daily bases. Julie jumped in to action and started calling everybody, God only knows who, Julie did something and the charges were dropped on my daughter and she got better and was sent to the prison psych ward, while being released.

The prison told Julie that I could call and talk to my daughter, so I tried to, but the prison would not let me talk to her. They stated that she was still in custody, I explain to them she has been released, needless to say I was not successful, so I called Julie and was crying again and explained to her what happened.Julie got back on the phone and next thing you know I received a phone call the staff at the prison, and they put my daughter on the phone. She didn’t sound like she was all there yet, she wasn’t fully back to being her.

When I went back to Texas to get my daughter and bring her home to AZ, we had to pick her up from the psych prison ward. My daughter had MERSA (staph infection) on the back of her head, she couldn’t walk, she over enunciated her speech, and had traumatic brain injury. She had memory loss, too. My daughter had not had a bath in 4 days, was left to defecate and urinate on herself. She was unable to walk or stand; she needed help with every thing. My daughter would still be there in prison or dead if it hadn’t been for Julie.

Julie fought day and night for my family; she is a blessing to have. If Julie went to bat for you she fights with all she has. Not all situations will turn out the way this one did, but it’s not from a lack of trying on her part. Julie is my friend and she has a heart for justice for our loved ones in prison.

If you all don’t believe me I have pictures of my daughter on life support , and you can meet my daughter get a hold of me on Facebook and leave me your # and I will be more than happy to meet you in public. Julie saved my daughter's life. Thank God my daughter turned 22 this yr.

Verena and her daughter, with Julie's daughter Kirsten, at the 2010 Liver Life Walk raising awareness about prisoners with Hepatitis C. They're holding up a birthday card for Davon, Julie's imprisoned son, for whom we were all walking that day.