Trial Magazine

While at a hotel, Elliott Williams, 37, began to experience psychiatric difficulties. The hotel manager called local police, who came to the scene and later arrested Williams on a misdemeanor obstruction charge. Williams was taken to police headquarters and placed in a video-monitored holding cell. While there, he behaved erratically and displayed signs of acute psychosis and suicidal tendencies. The next day, he was transferred to a county jail.

Williams became defiant, hitting his head against the wall of his cell. Although various people checked on Williams, he was left untreated for about 10 hours despite his complaints that he had broken his neck. Staff then took Williams to the medical unit, where he was seen by a doctor three days later. Two days after that, another physician recommended that Williams be transferred to a hospital for testing to rule out any medical problems. Williams remained at the jail, however, and died later that day. He is survived by his parents and siblings.

Williams’s estate sued the county sheriff, in his official capacity, and the former sheriff, individually, alleging cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, failure to promulgate adequate mental health policies, medical understaffing, and inadequate training of jail personnel, among other claims. Suit also named a health care provider, which settled for an undisclosed amount.

The jury awarded $10 million in compensatory damages against both defendants and $250,000 in punitive damages against the former sheriff, individually.

Citation: Burke v. Glanz, No. 11-CV-720-JHP-TLW (N.D. Okla. Mar. 30, 2017).

Plaintiff counsel: AAJ members Donald Smolen II and Greg Denney, and Daniel Smolen, Robert Blakemore, Thomas Mortenson, and Louis Bullock, all of Tulsa, Okla.

Plaintiff experts: Scott A. Allen, correctional medicine, Riverside, Calif.; Steven Hoge, forensic psychiatry, New York City; and Zeeshaan Khan, orthopedic surgery, Oklahoma City.