Wampum

There is a lot to pay attention to right now. The third anniversary of 9/11 is upon us. The election is less than two months away. We have passed 1000 dead Americans in Iraq. The third hurricane of the season is bearing down on Florida. All of those issues are important but I do not wish to discuss any of them right now. Instead, I would like to call your attention to the sad story of one James Monroe Mims.

James Monroe Mims is a 53 year old, mentally ill Texan. In 1978, Mims was involved in a "domestic standoff" in which he allegedly shot at two Dallas Police officers. He was charged with two counts of attempted muder. I surmise from the brief news stories that he shot but did not kill the officers. Mims was never tried on those charges as the Texas courts found him to be mentally incompetent to stand trial. Mims suffers from schizophrenia.

As a result of his incompetence, Mins was confined at the Terrell State Hospital where he has remained for the last 26 years. A finding of incompetence to stand trial is not a final determination. Should a criminal defendant regain competence, he may still be put on trial for the underlying crime.

Accordingly, at various times over the last 26 years, Mims was brought before the court for a hearing to determine whether or not he was able to stand trial. He has always been found to remain incompetent due to his mental illness.

In February of this year, Mims was brought from the mental hospital to the Dallas County jail in preparation for another such hearing,

While awaiting his hearing, Mims received no mental health treatment. The hospital had sent along anti-psychotic medication and anti-seizure medication for Mims. He was never provided those meds while in the Dallas County jail. Some of the jailers made referrals of Mims to the jail psychiatric staff but no mental health professional appears to have seen Mims during his two months in the Dallas County jail.

Towards the end of March, the Dallas County jailers turned off the water to Mims' cell. Why they did so remains unclear. Some jailers contend that the water was turned off because Mims had flooded his cell. Investigators dispute that contention.

What is not in dispute is that Mims was left in his cell without water for thirteen days. You read that right, the Dallas County jail left a mentally ill human being locked in a cell without water for thirteen days. The Dallas Morning News reports:

A mentally ill inmate in the Dallas County jail nearly died in April after jailers cut off his drinking water for at least 13 days and denied him his psychiatric medications for two months, an internal investigation by the Sheriff's Department found.

James Monroe Mims, 53, was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital on April 9 after jail trusties found him on the floor of his cell, semiconscious, incoherent and soaked in his own waste, investigators wrote in their report.

At Parkland, emergency room nurses immediately saw that Mr. Mims was critically ill, suffering from severe dehydration and kidney failure. He had pressure sores on his shoulder, back and hip, indicating that he had been lying unaided for a long period of time, nurses told investigators.

Mr. Mims spent three months in Parkland, the first of those months in intensive care, before doctors pulled him through, family members said.

Mims's dehydration resulted in kidney damage that will require him to undergo dialysis three times a week for the rest of his life.

It is hard for me to understand how a jailer can watch, day by day, as a mentally ill human being is slowly dehydrated to a point near death. The utter lack of humanity is just startling.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have felt compelled to write on the subject of the criminal justice system's inhumanity towards the mentally ill. Please see this guest post at Body and Soul. That post told the story of James Carpenter, a mentally ill, homeless, panhandler caught up in the criminal justice system in Alabama:

In 2000, James Carpenter was arrested for the misdemeanor of panhandling outside a fast food restaurant. He was taken the Mobile County Jail. He never left the jail alive.

Although the jailers knew that Carpenter was mentally ill, he received no treatment. He also was never taken before any judge for a bail hearing or for any other hearing.

After being arrested, Carpenter was stripped naked and placed in solitary confinement. He was cuffed at his hands and ankles and chained to a bed. Although guards brought food and placed it in his cell, the chains were too short for Carpenter to be able to reach the food. He lost 23 pounds in fifteen days.

Jail procedure required the guards to check in on Carpenter several times every hour. They failed to do so, leaving him unwatched for extended periods.

The handcuffs and ankle shackles rubbed against James Carpenter’s skin and caused ulcers at his wrists and ankles. A flesh eating bacteria entered his body through the wounds. He never received any medical treatment for the wounds or the infection. Fifteen days after being incarcerated in the Mobile County Jail, James Carpenter died from the infection.

An attorney retained by the Mims family is quoted as saying that "If somebody denied water to a horse or a dog for two weeks, they'd be prosecuted." I suspect that a story about an animal shelter failing to provide water for dogs for nearly two weeks would have generated more attention, both from the press and from officials, than has the story of James Monroe Mims.

Mims' story has not received a lot of publicity. Google News reveals that a few media outlets in Texas ran small stories about him. I find no media outlet outside of Texas that has run the story.

One Texas news outlet led its coverage of the story as follows:

The Dallas County jail is about to be hit with another lawsuit - this one on behalf of a mentally-ill man.

To them, the big news is that a law suit is about to be filed. The fate of a mentally ill man being denied water for at least 13 days is secondary.

The blogosphere has not filled in for the lack of media coverage.To her credit, TalkLeft posted about Mims. I have seen no other references to the story and a Google search for "James Monroe Mims" turns up nothing.

The reaction of Texas officials has been worse than the media. The Dallas County District attorney, Bill Hill, was uncommited about whether the treatment of James Monroe Mims even warrants an investigation.

Mr. Hill's spokeswoman, Rachel Horton, said the district attorney's office would consider an investigation if Mr. Finn requested one.

There you have it. A mentally ill man was denied water for at least thirteen days because some jail employee was afraid that he might have to mop the floor. As a result, a human being almost died and suffered kidney damage that will require him to undergo thrice weekly dialysis. The decision to turn off the water was inhuman (indeed, we would be outraged if someone did that to a dog). The decision costs hundreds of thousands of dollars (one month in an intensive care unit, two more months in a hospital and a lifetime of dialysis). What is the reaction to that scandal?

The blogosphere is more concerned with the history of fonts and typewriters.

The media outside of Texas studiously ignore the story.

One media outlet in Texas thinks that the story is about whether the Dallas jail gets sued.

The repsonsible elected local official allows that if someone is going to make a big stink about one crazy prisoner, he will consider whether or not an investigation is warranted.

It is a sad story, and not just for James Monroe Mims and his family.

Thanks for your attention. You may now return to discussing the exact characteristics of an IBM Selectric circa 1970.