Today's Sacramento Bee has this front-page story:
State and Amador County officials have agreed to pay out $750,000 to the parents of an inmate who died after being blasted in the face with pepper spray by prison guards despite the fact that he breathed through a tube in his throat and was securely locked in his cell.
The settlement over the September 2013 death of inmate Joseph Damien Duran is one of the largest in the last decade in the Sacramento region resulting from conduct by prison officials.
In a federal civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit, Duran’s parents accused corrections officials of trying to cover up their son’s gruesome death by failing to notify them that he was dead, then having the body cremated and the ashes dumped in the sea.
Duran’s death initially was classified as a “suicide” by the Amador County coroner’s office, which investigated because Duran died in the county at Mule Creek State Prison, about 35 miles southeast of Sacramento.
Stewart Katz, the Sacramento attorney representing Duran’s adoptive parents, originally sought a $6.75 million payout, court records state. But California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials “reported shock and dismay at this figure and did not present a counter figure,” Katz wrote in court papers.
Instead, the two sides engaged in a settlement conference before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kendall Newman this month and agreed to the $750,000 settlement.
“I don’t think they’ve ever paid out that much at that stage of the proceedings,” Katz said Monday. “But, obviously, money doesn’t replace loss of life.”