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Before his body temp hit 109 and he died, Jail Pumps Heat into the Mentally Ill Man's Cell


 Tommy Lee Rutledge, 44, spent the last moments of his life shoving his face as close as he could to the window of his cell gasping for cooler air. the warmth was being pumped into his jail cell within the psychological state ward and he had no thanks to escaping it, causing his body temp to skyrocket to 109, killing him from hyperthermia.


The Alabama Department of Corrections has refused to answer any questions on why Rutledge’s cell was so hot given the very fact that on the night he died, the surface temperature was 31 degrees. They cited an “ongoing investigation” as their reason for silence.

According to Rutledge’s autopsy, he was found unresponsive in Donaldson prison on the night of Dec. 7, sitting near the window of his single-occupant cell together with his head “facing out the window,” in an obvious try to breathe cooler air.

Beth Shelburne, a contract journalist obtained the autopsy report, otherwise, the small print of Rutledge’s death may have not seen the sunshine of day.

According to the Montgomery Advertiser, officials have refused to answer any question about whether the other prisoners suffered heat-related illnesses at the identical prison, what caused the intense temperatures and whether any disciplinary actions are considered for employees.

“As the Alabama Department of Corrections’ investigation into the death of Tommy Lee Rutledge is ongoing, we cannot provide details at now. More information is going to be available upon the conclusion of our investigation,” Samantha Rose, an ADOC spokesperson, said in an exceeding statement.

Activists are citing how Rutledge’s death was entirely avoidable and also the culture inside Alabama prisons is callous and reckless.

“Confining an insane prisoner in an over-heated isolation cell until they suffer a protracted and inhumane death may be a tragic consequence of the culture of indifference by state officials concerning Alabama’s prisons,” Charlotte Morrison, senior attorney for the Equal Justice Initiative, said.

The Equal Justice Initiative spoke with an investigator with the corrections department who “told the medical examiner’s office that, once the warmth is turned on, the temperature in each cell can't be adjusted, so Mr. Rutledge had no thanks to regulating the temperature in his cell. Men incarcerated on the mental state ward never leave their cells, the investigator said; they eat and bathe in their cells.”

Deadly heat aside, the conditions during which these people live are horrifying enough. Imagine being in a very cage — forever. In what scenario is it acceptable to lock someone in confinement forever so force them to suffer a protracted and inhumane death by heating up their cell? Sure, Rutledge committed crimes, but free societies are free because we avoid cruel and weird punishment.

What’s more, adding to the terrible nature of Rutledge’s death is that he was on the point of be eligible for parole. consistent with EJI, “Mr. Rutledge was initially sentenced to life in prison without parole for against the law that happened when he was 17. I challenged the constitutionality of such sentences for kids and in 2012 won a ban on mandatory life-without-parole sentences for kids at the Supreme Court. EJI lawyers successfully represented Mr. Rutledge in resentencing proceedings and he was given a brand new sentence. He would are eligible for parole in three years.”

The conditions inside Alabama prisons are so terrible that two days after Rutledge’s death, the Department of Justice filed an unprecedented civil rights complaint against the State of Alabama alleging that the state’s indifference to the systemic problems in Alabama’s prisons for men violates the Constitution, in line with EJI.

Hopefully, this complaint results in the novel change within the prison system as these scenarios are way more common than simply Rutledge. only one state over, Darren Rainey, a schizophrenic man serving time in prison for cocaine possession — was locked in an exceedingly scalding hot shower — while four guards stood just outside for 2 full hours, laughing sadistically at his agonizing pain. He was left within the shower for thus long that his skin literally peeled off and he died.

Neither John Fan Fan, Cornelius Thompson, Ronald Clarke, nor Edwina Williams — the officers at Florida’s Dade penal facility, who forced the person into the 180-degree shower as a demented punishment — were ever charged, and three of them are still cops.

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