This story has been updated.
After Tanisha Hill’s brother was found unresponsive while in the Department of Correction’s custody, she said she had to fight to get answers. She called the prison staff at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, but no one could tell her what happened to James. Not the facility nurses, not even the warden. James’ cellmate found a way to contact her, Hill said, and it was only then that she started to get a sense of what actually transpired.
James had been complaining about a headache, the person told her. He went to check on James but found him unresponsive. He pushed the emergency call button in the cell. But correctional officers took roughly 15 minutes to arrive, the cellmate said, and “even when they came, they didn’t come into the cell.'”
Hill said that when she eventually talked to the prison, they “never really told her anything.” But at that point, she already knew the outlook wasn’t positive based on her conversations with hospital employees. James died from a ruptured aneurysm a few days after his sister found out about his deteriorating status, a year before he was set to return home. She believes it was because of medical neglect by the DOC, which she said hadn’t properly treated his condition.
On the one-year anniversary of his death on Wednesday, roughly a month before the start of Connecticut’s legislative session and a day prior to a hearing that could help establish independent oversight of the DOC, Hill and a room of prison reform advocates at the Legislative Office Building renewed their calls for an increase in transparency and accountability from the agency overseeing jails and prisons.
Stop Solitary CT, an organization advocating for humane treatment of incarcerated people, led the event after the group held a press conference in December condemning the alleged assault of a man at Garner Correctional Institution by three correctional officers. At last month’s gathering, the advocates also made pleas for independent oversight. The scene on Wednesday slightly differed in that it centered heavily on the perspectives of people like Hill.
“I did not receive a ‘Sorry for your loss, my deepest sympathies.’ I didn’t receive any of that from the DOC,” Hill said.
Ashley McCarthy, the DOC’s director of external affairs, said in a statement that the investigation into James’ death is still open. She responded to claims about the lack of communication by stating that the agency can only provide information to people designated on a health information disclosure form.
All incarcerated people have in their records an emergency contact to whom information is provided, McCarthy added, and “Mr. Hill did not have a sibling listed as his emergency contact.”
Thursday will mark a major step in bringing the public’s demands for independent oversight to fruition. The Correction Advisory Committee, an 11-member group responsible for helping appoint an ombudsperson for the DOC, is scheduled to hear from the three finalists for the position in a public hearing at the Legislative Office Building.
After listening to the candidates and hearing testimony from the public, the panel expects to rank the contenders in order of preference and pass along the recommendation to Gov. Ned Lamont, who will then have 30 days to make a determination.
The independent authority chosen will hold the power to conduct site visits, communicate with incarcerated people and review agency records, in addition to other responsibilities.
The three finalists are: Hilary Carpenter, a veteran attorney in the Division of Public Defender Services; Barbara Fair, the longtime advocate who leads Stop Solitary CT; and Kenneth Krayeske, a civil rights attorney based in New Haven. Krayeske is representing Hill in a lawsuit against the DOC.
The perspectives brought forth on Wednesday were arranged to call more attention to the importance of the ombudsperson’s swift appointment. At the event, attorney Alex Taubes shared the story of a person identified by the initials J.T., who began choking while sleeping just before his release from MacDougall-Walker.
J.T. and his cellmate pressed the emergency button in their cell, Taubes said, allegedly for hours with no response from correctional staff. He said the prison stated that the facility had no records pertaining to the usage of emergency call buttons. But videos from the prison showed that correctional officers were walking at “a snail’s pace” when finally responding to the incident, Taubes said.
J.T. died that night. At 19 years old, with no prior medical conditions, Taubes said, the medical examiner determined that his death was due to natural causes.
“When I say that we need an independent DOC ombudsperson, I mean it,” Taubes said. “The state of our correctional system right now is not just a mess; it is a catastrophe. People are losing decades of their lives, and their families are losing loved ones because of the lack of oversight in our correctional facilities.”
He endorsed Barbara Fair, who has spent decades organizing for accountability in the DOC. Fair and Stop Solitary were responsible for the bill that established the ombudsperson role, which will serve in the state’s Office of Governmental Accountability.
Fair said Wednesday that she hopes the state appoints a person dedicated to the well-being of incarcerated people, even if it doesn’t end up being her.
“I would like to be at the place where they don’t have to call me, or email me, or text me, or families reaching out to me about what’s going on in prison,” Fair said. “And I’m hoping the ombudsperson person who gets in place is going to be the one who’s not going to be compromised by the system.”
Hill, who is Fair’s cousin, said when she visited the hospital last year to see James, he was unconscious and his body was swollen. She previously worked in the hospice unit of the Veterans Administration, so she knew what the signs of death looked like. But that wasn’t the only thing. Her brother’s right foot was handcuffed to the hospital bed.
Her hope is that no family has to experience what hers has had to endure.
Correction
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the number of people who serve on the Correction Advisory Committee. The committee has 11 members, not nine.