LEGAL
Death in Georgia Prison Leads to $2.2M Settlement
Prison offi cers ignored transgender woman’s calls for assistance prior to her death
BY MATT TRACY
The family of a transgender
woman who died by
suicide following a stint
in a Georgia state prison
has landed a $2.2 million wrongful
death settlement.
The settlement, which was
fi rst reported by CNN on December
7, was reached four years after
Jenna Mitchell died in a case
that prompted her family to proceed
with a federal civil rights
lawsuit. Attorney David Shanies,
who represented the family of the
late Layleen Polanco, a transgender
woman who died at Rikers in
2019, is also representing Mitchell’s
family.
Mitchell, 25, was being housed
with men at Valdosta State Prison,
where her family said she was often
held in solitary confi nement over
the course of eight or nine months,
despite suffering from schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder, and untreated
gender dysphoria, according to
the lawsuit, which was obtained by
Gay City News.
On December 2, 2017, Mitchell’s
mother, Sheba Maree, called
the prison to inform offi cials that
her daughter threatened suicide.
Maree asked the prison to place
her on suicide watch, but a prison
employee assured Maree that her
daughter “was already ‘in medical’
for a suicide attempt and was
‘okay,'” the lawsuit noted.
Yet, two days later, Mitchell was
placed in solitary confi nement
Jenna Mitchell was held at Valdosta State Prison in Georgia.
without any suicide watch — and
on that same day she told a prison
offi cial that she was planning suicide.
In response, a sergeant allegedly
told her, “Then kill yourself,
I don’t have anything to do with
that.”
At 1:30 p.m. that day, Mitchell
asked two offi cials to go to her cell.
The offi cials subsequently arrived
to fi nd a noose around her neck, at
which point Mitchell again stated
her intention to die by suicide, according
to the lawsuit.
That warning sign did not
prompt prison offi cials to take any
action. Instead, Correction Offi cer
James Lee Roy Igou walked away
and allegedly ignored other inmates
when they tried to alert him
that Mitchell was “taking steps” towards
a suicide, the lawsuit stated.
Igou laughed and shouted down
the cell block to say that Mitchell
should avoid dying by suicide until
he returns because he “wanted to
see.”
By 1:35 p.m., an inmate told
prison offi cials that Mitchell was
hanging in her cell — and fi ve
minutes later Igou and Sergeant
Wallace Richardson found Mitchell
hanging by her neck inside her
cell. Still, they did not try to lift her
up in an effort to save her.
Prison offi cials searched unsuccessfully
for a life-saving “cut down”
tool used to cut the bed sheets, but
there were no cut down tools available,
according to the suit.
Mitchell was sent to a hospital
and later died on December 6
following a coma that lasted two
days.
The lawsuit pointed to injuries
on Mitchell’s face that refl ected
physical violence, which the prison
said was a result of falling off
a gurney twice while en route to
the hospital. The lawsuit asserted,
however, that the injuries were inconsistent
with falling off a gurney
and, instead, were likely the result
of physical violence.
Igou was fi red weeks later for
placing feces in a spray bottle and
spraying inmates, the lawsuit
said.
Notably, the case resembled the
GOOGLE MAPS
2019 death of Polanco, who was
left to die by guards in her “restrictive
housing” cell at Rikers in New
York City while she fatally suffered
seizures caused by epilepsy.
“A common thread in both Jenna
Mitchell and Layleen Polanco’s
deaths is the utter disregard corrections
offi cials showed for the
lives of incarcerated trans women,”
Shanies told Gay City News on December
7. “Both women were left
to die by governmental offi cials
whose responsibility was to keep
them safe. Both deaths were easily
preventable. When will it stop?”
Polanco’s case led to a $5.9 million
settlement and the suspension
of 17 Department of Correction offi
cers.
In September, the Department
of Justice announced an investigation
into the treatment of
prisoners in Georgia, including
LGBTQ people, and an Obamaera
investigation once looked
into sexual abuse by staff and
prisoners in the state. Ashley
Diamond, a transgender woman
who has been in a men’s prison
in the state, sued the Georgia Department
of Correction after she
alleged multiple sexual assaults
and said her hormones were being
withheld.
A spokesperson for Georgia Attorney
General Chris Carr, a Republican,
declined to comment.
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