Mother’s Suit Over Son’s Death While in Jail Revived on Appeal

A mother’s lawsuit over the lack of medical care her now-deceased son received while in jail for a probation violation is back after after a federal appeals court said she’d made a compelling case for the liability of the Alabama county where he was held.

Pamela Smothers’s lawsuit alleges the Walker County decided over and over again to contract exclusively with Preemptive Forensic Health Solutions, knowing the company was providing woefully inadequate health care to its inmates. She put up enough evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that in doing so, the county was deliberately indifferent to Mitchell ...