Policies banning hospital visits of crime suspects outrage families
Timothy Jackson was hospitalized for more than 10 days after he was shot Dec. 22. His family was never allowed to see him.
He died late at night on Jan. 2. The family was notified of his death shortly after.
Months after the death, the family remains angry. His brother Jimmy Jackson said he and his parents didn't get to see Timothy in his final days. They didn't get to say goodbye.
"We wanted to be with him," Jimmy Jackson said, "but they won't let us."
That's because 53-year-old Timothy Jackson was not just any patient at Eskenazi Hospital. The Nashville, Tenn., resident was a patient accused of a crime. Authorities said he was shot while trying to rob an armored truck in the parking lot of a Far-Southside Wal-Mart. At the hospital, he was in the custody of the Marion County Sheriff's Office.
He was a suspect. He had not had his day in court. But in the eyes of law enforcement, he was a risk.
More recently, an online petition with 1,780 signatures urged authorities to allow the mother of Major Davis Jr., the suspect in the July 5 fatal shooting of Indianapolis police officer Perry Renn, to visit her 25-year-old son at Eskenazi. On Monday, Davis was released and taken to the Marion County Jail.
In cases of hospitalized inmates, security concerns usually trump the families' desire to see their loved ones. Experts say this approach is common among detention facilities, many of which don't even let families know that inmates are hospitalized. Some allow visitations under certain circumstances. Some allow limited visitations. Some don't allow any visitations of hospitalized inmates.
The bottom line, experts say, is that when people are accused or convicted of a crime, their rights are limited. Visitation, whether in a detention facility or in a hospital room, is a privilege, not a right.
Strict rules for hospital visits
The Marion County Sheriff's Office allows hospital visitations for inmates only if they are in near-death conditions, if they have been in the hospital for 30 days or more or if a court order exists.
Rules are stricter in Hamilton County, where hospital visitations generally aren't allowed at all. In near-death situations, the sheriff decides whether families can visit, said Capt. Jason Sloderback, jail commander for the Hamilton County Jail.
In Hendricks County, rules are more lax. Family members of critically ill or injured inmates are allowed as long as security measures are followed and the inmates are stable enough for a visit, said Maj. Harold Gibson, jail commander for the Hendricks County Jail. The jail allows one family member at a time to visit. Visitors are subject to a pat-down search, and they can visit for only 30 minutes while an armed officer is present.
And unlike with regular patients, whose families can speak directly to doctors or nurses, families of inmates are allowed to talk only to law enforcement.
"We communicate with the (law enforcement) agency, and that agency then determines if communication with the family of the patient is appropriate," said Todd Harper, spokesman for Eskenazi Hospital. "We don't communicate directly with family unless we are directed to by law enforcement."
The reason for such strict rules is that hospitals and the presence of civilians pose a high security concern, said Katie Carlson, spokeswoman for the Marion County Sheriff's Office. Eskenazi, for instance, does not have the infrastructure of a detention facility, she said.
"When an individual has been arrested or is in jail and is also in the hospital, emotions are bound to run high," Carlson said.
Because an inmate is in a public place, there is a likelihood of several things going wrong, Sloderback said.
There could be an altercation between family members and staff, Sloderback said. Someone who is not a family member could come in to harm the inmate.
The likelihood of someone bringing in contraband also becomes a security concern, Carlson said.
"We don't want anything to go bad, so why put yourself in a situation where it might?" Sloderback said. "At the end of the day, we're just trying to provide safety and security for everybody involved."
Staff and other resources also can play a role.
"If you have multiple family members, then you're going to want multiple officers there," Sloderback said. "That's even more money and overtime to try to provide that security."
Are inmates' rights curtailed?
Visitation restrictions are not a violation of the Constitution, experts say. They are not a violation of an inmate's rights.
"Basically, visitation is a privilege; it's not a right," said Brad Brockmann, executive director of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights, a Rhode Island-based organization that advocates for prison rights. "It's subject to suspension and revocation at any time."
That's not to say that families don't have options.
An attorney representing an inmate can ask a judge for a court order to allow the family's visit, Indianapolis defense attorney Bradley Keffer said. Families can bring a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim or a claim alleging the violation of a person's freedom of association against the detention center.
Chances, however, remain slim.
The claims mentioned are rare, Keffer said, because courts typically give broad discretion to county sheriffs and prisons when making decisions that relate to security.
"The deference is heightened when an individual is at a facility away from the jail and the sheriff has to provide security to that location, like a hospital or a funeral," Keffer said.
Brockmann agreed.
"The institutions see themselves primarily as security and safety institutions, and that basically determines everything that they do," he said. "If there's any issue between security and the right of an individual, security tends to win."
'We didn't feel it was right'
Jimmy Jackson said the family wanted to send a Christmas card to his youngest brother. At the very least, they wanted to talk to him via FaceTime, the video chat function on an iPhone.
But they couldn't.
They only received updates about Timothy Jackson's condition from a police officer. Jimmy Jackson said he was told his brother was conscious and talking.
After his brother died, Jimmy Jackson began asking more questions. He said Timothy Jackson had to be resuscitated three times in a six-hour period before he died. Jimmy Jackson said someone should have called the family after the first or second resuscitation. He said the family would have been able to get to the hospital in time to say goodbye.
Jimmy Jackson said they were notified about two hours after his brother died.
"We didn't feel it was right," said Jimmy Jackson, the oldest of three brothers. "We never got to tell him that we were thinking of him, praying for him. If someone is dying in the hospital, a family should be able to see them regardless."
The Marion County Sheriff's Office does allow visitation in near-death situations, and it's unclear why the Jackson family wasn't immediately notified that Timothy Jackson had to be resuscitated.
Harper, the Eskenazi spokesman, said he cannot comment specifically on the Jackson case, citing hospital privacy regulations. The hospital also cannot release information about Timothy Jackson's medical condition at that time because he was in police custody.
In cases of near-death situations, hospital staff relay information to the law enforcement agency, which then decides whether family should be contacted. In Timothy Jackson's case, the Sheriff's Office was never notified of an imminent-death situation, spokeswoman Carlson said.
The Jacksons' case isn't unusual.
In some cases, inmates die in facilities without families learning about the deaths, said Paul Wright, founder and executive director of the Florida-based Human Rights Defense Center, another advocacy group for prisoners.
"It's unfortunately the norm in a lot of cases," Wright said. "There's a very limited right."
Star reporter John Tuohy contributed to this story. Call Star reporter Kristine Guerra at (317) 444-6209. Follow her on Twitter: @kristine_guerra.