September 24, 2009 Huntsville Times
The mother of an inmate who died a few days after entering a state prison was awarded $750,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit against prison officials and a mental health provider. The money was awarded to Mary Barksdale, the mother of Farron Barksdale, 32, of Athens who died Aug. 20, 2007, after he was found unconscious in his Kilby Prison cell. "We reached what we believed to be a fair settlement in light of what we knew of the troubling circumstances surrounding Mr. Barksdale's demise while in state custody," Sarah Geraghty, senior attorney for the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, said Wednesday. "Some facts surrounding the death, however, remain a mystery to this day due to the department's policy against releasing records on deaths in custody." Jake Watson, a Huntsville attorney who also represented Mary Barksdale, said Wednesday, "In light of all the circumstances, I think that was the best settlement." The state Department of Corrections was not a defendant in the case. According to the settlement agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery, former Kilby Warden Arnold Holt was ordered to pay $300,000 to the settlement, Dr. Joseph McGinn of MHM Correctional Services in Vienna, Va., was to contribute $370,000, and Dr. Arnold Holt of Prison Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn., was to pay $80,000. MHM provides mental health services for the Department of Corrections. The suit alleged that Barksdale, who suffered from schizophrenia, died because of "the deliberate indifference, medical neglect and negligence" of the prison staff.

September 23, 2009 Huntsville Times
A wrongful death lawsuit filed by the mother of an inmate who died just 12 days after entering prison has been settled with the state Department of Corrections, her lawyers said Tuesday. Though the terms were not disclosed, the settlement was also confirmed by state prison Commissioner Richard Allen. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Montgomery on behalf of Mary Barksdale, the mother of Farron Barksdale, 32, of Athens, who died Aug. 20, 2007, after he was found unconscious in his Kilby Prison cell. Barksdale, who pleaded guilty to capital murder in the shooting death of two Athens police officers, had been transferred to the prison just three days earlier to begin serving a sentence of life without parole. Mary Barksdale, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, was represented by Sarah Geraghty, an attorney for the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, and Huntsville attorney Jake Watson. Geraghty and Watson confirmed that Mary Barksdale was awarded a cash settlement, but they would not disclose the amount. The defendants in the suit were former Kilby Warden Arnold Hold, Drs. Michael Robbins and Joseph McGinn, two unnamed correctional officers, an unnamed medical worker and Vienna, Va., based MHM Correctional Services. MHM provides mental health services for the Department of Corrections. The suit alleged that Barksdale, who suffered from schizophrenia, died because of "the deliberate indifference, medical neglect and negligence" of the prison staff. "Mr. Barksdale was medicated with an unusually large dose of psychotropic medications that made his body unable to withstand high temperatures, confined to an isolation cell with a medically dangerous degree of heat and left there without adequate monitoring," the complaint said. "He fell into a coma and died." The complaint said Barksdale was not placed in Kilby's mental health unit, which is air-conditioned. On the day he was found unresponsive in his cell, the temperature in Montgomery was 106 degrees. Kilby is located just east of Montgomery. On that day, the complaint said, correctional officers found Barksdale in a coma, "snoring and moaning," with a temperature of 103.1 degrees. He was taken to the hospital but never regained consciousness after eight days. An autopsy said he died of pneumonia and complications from hypothermia and a blood-clotting problem, and that bruises on his upper body and hip did not contribute to his death. A state prison inmate later wrote in an Oct. 24, 2008, letter to Montgomery County Circuit Judge Eugene Reese that Barksdale was severely beaten by four prison guards. Allen asked the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Corrections' Department of Investigations and Intelligence to reopen the investigation into Barksdale's death, but the results of that probe have never been released. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Department of Corrections must comply with the state's Open Records law and make records available on crimes committed within prisons. The Southern Center for Human Rights had sued over that issue. Despite the high court's 5-0 ruling, Allen said Friday state attorneys may ask for a rehearing.

Florida Department of Corrections, Tallahassee, Florida
July 28, 2009 Miami Herald
A state hearing officer has ruled in favor of the Department of Corrections in a controversy involving an $80-million contract to provide mental health to South Florida inmates. Administrative Law Judge Suzanne Hood's 39-page decision concluded that the losing bidder, MHM Correctional Services, failed to prove that the prison system violated the law in awarding a five-year-contract to a rival, Correctional Medical Services. The decision was a setback to MHM and its legal team at Foley & Lardner, led by Chris Kise, a former legal advisor to Gov. Charlie Crist. "I am saddened, as costs will go up and quality of care will go down, but not entirely surprised by the order as the judge does not appear to get it," Kise said in an e-mail message to The News Service of Florida. Kise's administrative challenge included explosive allegations that prison officials negotiated in secret with CMS in violation of the public records laws that his ex-boss, Crist, has championed as governor. "MHM has not met its burden of persuasion in this case," Judge Hood wrote. In addition, she concluded, MHM failed to prove that its proposal met the state's criteria for financial viability (The prison system had rejected MHM's proposal on financial grounds).

June 26, 2009 St Petersburg Times
An ''appalled'' state judge said Thursday that Florida's prison system ''blatantly violated the public trust'' by secretly negotiating with a new firm to provide for inmates' mental health. Leon County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield said the actions of the Department of Corrections in its secret dealings with Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis were ``at best, offensive, and at worst, illegal.'' But the judge denied the request by MHM Correctional Services for a temporary injunction. MHM wanted to block the award of a five-year contract to CMS through a 120-day purchase order that starts July 1. The judge said MHM still has legal remedies because it has a bid protest pending before a state hearing officer. He added that the public interest would not be served by an injunction because MHM's contract with the prison system expires June 30. To prevent the state from doing business with CMS ''would cause confusion, disorder and produce public injury that outweighs the individual right to the relief sought,'' the judge wrote in a seven-page order. Last February, the state received four proposals for mental health services for 18,000 inmates in the region from Homestead to Fort Pierce. Many of those inmates have serious mental disorders and receive psychotropic drugs. The prison system determined that all four companies failed to meet its criteria, then began secret negotiations with CMS, even though its offer was $5 million higher than MHM's, the judge wrote. Sheffield was particularly critical of a decision by the state to back-date an official document by 13 days that set the CMS purchase order in motion, and then 'engaging in an old-fashioned shell game of calling a short-term contract with the same company as is currently involved in a bid dispute a `purchase order.' '' MHM attorney Chris Kise, a former legal advisor to Gov. Charlie Crist, said: `The people lost today due to the worst abuse of power imaginable. The department engaged in secret negotiations, blatant violations of the public trust and unconscionable practices, then hid behind the very laws designed to protect the people.''

June 22, 2009 News Service of Florida
A high-stakes battle over multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Corrections took an ugly turn on Monday. Lawyers representing MHM Correctional Services Inc. alleged in a court filing that a high-ranking DOC official may have been negotiating to get a job for a friend from Correctional Medical Services at the same time he recommended that the agency hire CMS. Ken Fields, a spokesman for CMS, said the allegation was simply a ploy intended to get media coverage. “This latest allegation is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt that is completely baseless," said Fields in an e-mail. CMS was chosen back in April to provide mental health services to South Florida prison inmates. But current vendor MHM has contested the bid, saying the department broke contracting and public records laws by negotiating with CMS in secret before announcing the St. Louis based company had won a contract worth more than $80 million over the next five years. MHM has also filed a separate lawsuit against the Department of Corrections after finding out that the agency planned to bring on CMS on July 1 when the current contract with MHM expires. Leon County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield is expected to rule this week on whether to block the $6 million four-month purchase order the department approved in late May. Chris Kise, an attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP, filed a motion in circuit court on Monday that suggests that one reason CMS won the 4-month contract is because Dr. Sandeep Rahangdale, deputy secretary for health services, was trying to land a job for a friend with CMS. Kise attached e-mails that show that Rahangdale asked CMS officials to send information to his personal e-mail account about salary range and requirements for a position. He states “I think I have the perfect fit for you and the state" in the e-mail. A spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections would not answer the allegation about Rahangdale, who makes $172,500 in his job with the agency. Rahangdale has been deputy secretary since Jan. 31, 2008. But Fields, the spokesman for CMS, said that Kise and his legal team have been in possession of the Rahangdale e-mail for weeks. "Until now and because they seek to avoid legal challenge, they have never raised this false allegation in any hearing related to this injunction or in their bid protest,’’ said Fields. “Instead they have chosen to wait until the hearings are concluded and to make the assertion in the media."

June 18, 2009 St Petersburg Times
A state judge is ordering two prison officials to testify today on their role in a disputed decision to switch vendors for mental health care to inmates in South Florida. "I direct that they appear," Leon County Circuit Judge Frank Sheffield said at a hearing Thursday. The judge ordered the two employees, Millie Seay and Jimmy Smith, to testify in a lawsuit brought by a company that has been fired by the Department of Corrections. The firm, MHM Correctional Services of Virginia, is seeking to block the state from replacing it with Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis, at what MHM says is $5 million more. The lawsuit sheds light on the intense competition among firms to secure lucrative contracts with agencies in Gov. Charlie Crist's administration. As the judge noted Thursday, "There's a lot of money at stake, and we have time frames imposed of July 1." MHM attorney Christopher Kise accused the prison system of flagrant violations of state purchasing and open meeting laws, "a rigging of the process" and a waste of taxpayers' money in switching vendors. He argued that MHM's lawsuit should stay, or prevent, the state from hiring CMS on July 1 for a 120-day period under a special purchase order while the vendor makes the transition as mental health provider. Attorneys for CMS, which was allowed to intervene in the lawsuit Thursday, told the judge a fast decision is needed because the firm needs to start its work. CMS attorney Peter Antonacci called the 120-day transition period a contractual "patch" not subject to the state's purchasing laws. Seay is director of administration for the Department of Corrections, and Smith is assistant program administrator for health services.

June 11, 2009 Miami Herald
A judge in Tallahassee ruled Wednesday that the Florida Department of Corrections improperly withheld public records from a vendor that filed a lawsuit after being ousted from a mental healthcare contract. The ruling is a victory for MHM Correctional Services, which wants to extend its 2 ½-year contract to provide services to more than 15,000 inmates in a dozen South Florida prisons. But it is a defeat for Attorney General Bill McCollum, whose office asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and argued that the Sunshine Law does not apply to purchasing committees, only boards and commissions. The DOC wants to replace MHM with Correctional Medical Services of St. Louis, even though that company would charge $5.5 million more for the same service over five years. MHM sued to stop the deal and argued that the state violated the Sunshine Law by omitting some e-mails related to the case. ''The court has conducted an in-camera inspection of the document containing the e-mail stream and has determined that it is not exempt under the provisions of Chapter 119,'' Circuit Judge Kevin Davey wrote Wednesday. "It does not appear that any of the communications in the stream were made in contemplation of litigation, which is required for the exemption.'' The bid protest is scheduled before a state hearing officer on Friday.

June 1, 2009 St Petersburg Times
A vendor on the verge of losing a contract to provide mental health services to 15,000 South Florida prison inmates is fighting back. Last week, MHM Correctional Services filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of Corrections of violating the Sunshine Law by holding unadvertised meetings to negotiate a more expensive multi-year contract with another vendor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS). Now MHM wants a Leon County judge to prevent the agency from going forward. In court papers, MHM's attorney says one of Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil's top aides, Director of Administrator Millie Seay, refused to sign an exception document that allowed DOC to issue an interim purchase order until a formal contract can be executed -- a very big red flag from MHM's viewpoint. Quoting a May 22 email from DOC's procurement chief Robert Staney to his staff, the motion for injunction states: "Millie Seay is reluctant to sign the waiver at this time." "This fact alone should have stopped the procurement process," the motion states. On a related front, MHM has enlisted the lobbying firm of Smith & Ballard, which has entree to the highest levels of the governor's office. At the center of this contract fight is MHM's attorney, Chris Kise of Foley & Lardner's Tallahassee office, who served as counselor to Gov. Charlie Crist in the first year of his term and was a top adviser to Crist as attorney general.

May 27, 2009 St Petersburg Times
Gov. Charlie Crist has made it a priority to run the "most open and transparent" administration in state history. But a former adviser to Crist is suing the state, claiming the Department of Corrections broke the Sunshine Law by mishandling a contract to provide mental health services to inmates. Attorney Chris Kise of Foley & Lardner, who served as a counselor and climate change advisor to Crist, filed the suit in state court in Tallahassee Tuesday on behalf of MHM Correctional Services, a Virginia firm that pitched a proposal to provide mental health care in the agency's South Florida Region IV prisons. Kise's suit alleges that he obtained public records showing that agency staffers began "secret negotiations" with a competing vendor, Correctional Medical Services (CMS), almost two weeks before competing vendors learned that their proposals were rejected. Kise also said the deal the state negotiated with CMS would cost taxpayers $5.5-million more than MHM's proposal. Corrections Secretary Walt McNeil said he was confident the agency would prevail. We are fully confident that we didn't do anything that would be a problem to the state," he said. "I think the facts will bear that out to be not true." By law, McNeil said, he can't discuss the details of a contract that is "still in the throes of procurement."

State Correctional Institution, Dallas, Dallas, Pennsylvania
February 25, 2010 Times Leader
The parents of a convicted murderer who committed suicide at the state Correctional Institution at Dallas have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against prison officials, 10 guards, two companies that provide prison health services and state Department of Corrections officials. Among the allegations in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Robert and Phyllis Bullock, of Dallas, is that corrections officers taunted their son, Matthew Lee Bullock, provided the means to commit suicide – a bed sheet he used to hang himself – and encouraged him to do so. A Luzerne County jury found Bullock guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill in the strangulation death of 33-year-old Lisa Hargrave, who was 22 weeks pregnant, in the couple’s Wilkes-Barre apartment on Jan. 1, 2003. The jury also found Bullock guilty of involuntary manslaughter but mentally ill for the death of the fetus. The lawsuit, filed in Luzerne County Court and transferred on Wednesday to U.S. District Court, details Bullock’s extensive mental health history, including 11 psychiatric disorders and more than 20 documented suicide attempts in the 10 years prior to his incarceration. Despite a court order that he was to be housed at a secure mental health facility for the needed treatment period, Bullock was confined in various state prisons, where he attempted suicide in May 2007, January 2008 and May 2009, the suit states. Bullock told staff at SCI Dallas on July 31, 2009 that he was “stressed” because his victim was related to a prison employee and that he was hearing voices, and he also cut the inside of his wrists on that date, the suit states. Despite all that, Bullock’s psychiatric medication was decreased and he was placed in a Restricted Housing Unit (RHU), which is not designed for confinement and treatment of the mentally ill, the suit states.