New evidence reveals more state hospital mistakes before Jamycheal Mitchell’s death

By Scott daugherty | The virginian-pilot | August 20, 2018 11:35 AM

PORTSMOUTH

Twenty days before Jamycheal Mitchell was found dead at Hampton Roads Regional Jail, a court clerk called Eastern State Hospital to ask why he hadn’t been transferred, according to recently filed court documents.

The call – which has not been reported before – led Portsmouth Deputy General District Clerk Kelly Boyd to fax another copy of the judge’s order to the Williamsburg hospital, but admissions coordinator Gail Hart still didn’t move Mitchell.

The order, according to court documents, was found after Mitchell’s death in one of Hart’s desk drawers – along with about a dozen other orders.

An attorney for Mitchell’s family learned of the July 31, 2015, phone call earlier this year while pursuing a lawsuit against the jail’s board and about 40 other defendants.

“Despite that phone call … Hart did not log the (court order) into Eastern State’s records,” attorney Mark Krudys wrote. “Even though the order was obviously already a couple months old. Even though a judge was following up.”

Hart’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment on the phone call, or a request pending before Chief District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith to get counts dismissed against his client.

Krudys declined to comment. In court documents, however, he argued Hart’s attorney filed his motion only after the state had started providing his office discovery that was “damaging” to Hart’s case. Krudys wants the motion to be placed on hold.

A hearing is set for Friday in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

Hart retired in September 2015, according to a state report.

Mitchell, 24, died Aug. 19, 2015, at the regional jail, about four months after an arrest for stealing $5 worth of snacks from a Portsmouth convenience store.

He’d lost significant weight while incarcerated. There were feces on the cell walls and urine on the floor when his body was discovered, the lawsuit said.

The cause of death was “probable cardiac arrhythmia accompanying wasting syndrome of unknown etiology,” according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

The suit, which seeks $60 million in damages, argues several people were to blame for his death. In addition to Hart and Boyd, named defendants include the jail’s board, its former superintendent David Simons, and its former-medical care provider NaphCare.

Mitchell was arrested April 22, 2015 and transferred to the regional jail around May 11.

After evaluating Mitchell on May 20, a doctor recommended he be committed to the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services for treatment in order for him to be restored to competency and stand trial.

Portsmouth General District Judge Morton V. Whitlow ordered Mitchell to Eastern State Hospital the next day, according to the lawsuit.

Former Portsmouth General District Clerk Jody Davis previously told The Pilot that her office mailed a copy of the competency order on May 27 to the hospital. Hospital officials, however, have no record of receiving a copy until Boyd faxed one over two months later.

The lawsuit names at least eight inmates as witnesses to the treatment Mitchell received at the regional jail. Among their claims is that guards denied Mitchell food and medical care in the days before his death.

Eastern State’s Clinical Director, Christine Armstead, told investigators she learned of the faxed court order on Aug. 24 – four days after Mitchell’s death. Instead of entering Mitchell’s name immediately on the hospital’s forensic log, Hart had placed it in her desk drawer with several others, according to a DBHDS audit. Armstead explained Hart was overwhelmed because the office was short-staffed and there had been an increased number of admissions.

If Mitchell’s name had been included on the forensic log, another hospital employee would have been tasked to check in on him at the regional jail.

Scott Daugherty, 757-446-2343, scott.daugherty@pilotonline.com

See Original Article Here.