By David Simpson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — After almost a year of investigation and legal argument, a federal judge will decide whether a jury should consider claims that DeKalb County jailers negligently — or even deliberately — caused the beating death of an elderly schizophrenic inmate by his young paranoid cellmate.
Based on court filings concluded Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. will decide whether to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Hoyt Jenkins.
The lawsuit alleges that guards at the DeKalb County Jail retaliated for Jenkins’ troublemaking by putting him in a cell with a newly arrived young inmate who already had punched a fellow prisoner.
Jenkins was found dead July 7, 2004, in a cell he had shared overnight with Jason Corey Smith, a newly arrived inmate who had behaved strangely. Smith claimed self-defense and later was acquitted of murder by a DeKalb jury.
Jenkins’ three sons contend that their frail 71-year-old father was well known in the jail for his racist rants — including frequent use of the “n-word” — and violent behavior. They say jail records show Smith, an African-American, was supposed to be in a different cell the night Jenkins was killed.
Officials for the county said cell assignments did not always strictly follow the computerized assignment system and no jail employee deliberately put Jenkins in harm’s way.
Smith was a muscular 24-year-old who had behaved oddly since his arrest about 24 hours earlier on drug charges.
First, Smith demanded to be jailed, even giving Decatur police his marijuana to use against him. He said he feared unknown others wanted to kill him. But once at the jail, he tried to escape, and the lawsuit claims he also attacked an inmate in a holding area.
The following night, he was assigned to the jail’s “special needs” area for prisoners under medical oversight. He was placed in Jenkins’ cell. When guards arrived the next morning to serve breakfast, Jenkins was dead.
The lawsuit alleges:
* Detention officers “deliberately placed inmate/detainee Smith in a locked cell with Jenkins to retaliate against Jenkins, a psychologically imbalanced inmate whose verbal and racial outbursts they were sick of.”
* The altercation between the men lasted 20 to 25 minutes, during which either Smith or Jenkins pressed the cell’s call button to summon help. Nearby inmates also claimed they pressed their call buttons, but no officers responded. The county has said no jail officers knew Jenkins needed help.
* Jenkins had been alone in a two-person cell because he had at least three prior conflicts with other inmates, started when he pulled them off their bunks while they were asleep. A detention officer told investigators about those incidents and that Jenkins also “liked to make a lot of racial slurs. ... We tried to keep him by himself a lot of times because he normally had a lot of problems with cellmates,” according to the lawsuit.
Another officer in the jail said he knew that one of the unofficial rules regarding Jenkins was that he should not have a cellmate, the lawsuit alleges.
News researchers Sharon Gaus and Joni Zeccola contributed to this article.
THE STORY SO FAR
* Sept. 25, 2003: Hoyt Jenkins is arrested for aggravated assault after waving a knife at two DeKalb County police officers who stopped him for driving without a license plate.
* March 3, 2004: A judge orders Jenkins transferred to Georgia Regional Hospital, citing a psychologist’s opinion that Jenkins is “delusional” and “actively psychotic.” State mental hospitals are overcrowded, and Jenkins is placed on a waiting list.
* July 5, 2004: Jason Corey Smith calls Decatur police and says he needs to be arrested because unnamed people want to kill him. He produces a bag of marijuana to ensure he will be taken to jail. Soon after arriving at the jail, however, he attempts to escape.
* July 6, 2004: Smith is placed in Jenkins’ cell.
* July 7, 2004: Jenkins is found beaten to death in the cell. Smith is found sitting on a table in the cell, muttering and incoherent.
* Sept. 21, 2006: After a trial in which Smith claims self-defense and his lawyer blames jail officials for Jenkins’ death, a DeKalb Superior Court jury finds Smith not guilty of all charges.
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution