The family of a man who died after starving in an Indiana jail while being held in solitary confinement for three weeks has secured a $7.25m settlement, thought to be the state’s largest ever in connection with the death of an incarcerated person.
Joshua McLemore’s estate reached the settlement with the government of the county where the jail is. Wrongful death lawsuits against the jail’s physician and its medical services provider, Advanced Correctional Healthcare Inc, are still pending.
McLemore – who had a history of schizophrenia and substance abuse – died in 2021 at the jail in Jackson county, Indiana. His estate filed a lawsuit in April 2023, alleging that the lockup’s staff failed to provide proper care and violated his civil rights by failing to monitor his condition.
The lawsuit detailed how McLemore had refused to eat while in the jail. He was locked, naked, in a small, windowless cell for 20 days after his arrest on 20 July 2021.
Video surveillance from the jail showed McLemore incoherently talking and screaming in his cell – and by early August, he was too weak to lift his own body.
“By the time staff finally sent Josh to the hospital, his condition was so dire that the local hospital did not have the clinical resources to treat him and he had to be airlifted to a larger hospital in Cincinnati, where he died two days later,” court records state.
McLemore died of multiple organ failure on 10 August 2021 after losing nearly 45lb while in solitary confinement.
Shortly before his arrest, McLemore had been taken to the hospital after a maintenance worker found him lying on the floor of his apartment naked and confused. He was arrested at the hospital after pulling a nurse’s hair, according to court records.
McLemore’s mother, Rhonda McLemore, died suddenly a little over a year after her son’s death. His aunt Melita Ladner, said in a statement on the settlement: “More than anything, I want this to be a wake-up call to Jackson county and every other jail. That was also the goal of Josh’s late mother.”
An attorney for McLemore’s estate, Ed Budge, said “the size of the settlement reflects the egregiousness of the jail’s mistreatment of Josh”.
Budge’s statement added: “The video we obtained shows a young man in severe mental and physical distress, with no ability to care for himself, being ignored by the people responsible for his safety and wellbeing. The video reveals a level of indifference and inhumanity that should never be tolerated in a modern jail.”
