JO ANNE RETTUS

MESA WOMAN DIES IN TEMPE JAIL

The Arizona Republic

Eugene Scott
July 2, 2007

A Mesa woman arrested for driving with a suspended license died in Tempe jail while she was being held, police said.

Jo Anne Rettus, 44, was put in her own jail cell between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Sunday. She had a long list of prescriptions that officers gave to her as prescribed, said Brandon Banks, Tempe police spokesman.

Banks was not able to provide any information on what the medication or the woman's illness was. He said there is police video showing guards completing their rounds of the jail cells every 15 minutes. They found the woman unresponsive at 1:30 a.m. during one of those routine checks. She was given CPR and taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Her cause of death is unknown.

Police expect to have the medical examiner's report and the video surveillance from the detention facility this week.

Detectives say there was no sign of foul play, struggle or self-inflicted injury.

This case is under investigation.

JAMES ALLEN SELBY

CONVICTED RAPIST HANGS SELF IN JAIL

Tue November 23, 2004

A convicted serial rapist who faced sentencing Monday was found hanged in his jail cell in Tucson, Ariz., hours before his scheduled court appearance, authorities said.

James Allen Selby, 37, was convicted last month of sexually assaulting five women and a teenager in the Tucson area.

He also was wanted in several other states, including Oklahoma. He was accused of abducting a 9-year-old girl Sept. 16, 1999, from her Cleveland County home and raping her.

He already was serving a sentence of 20 years to life for a Colorado rape.

Selby used a bedsheet to hang himself, authorities said.

WILLIAM HARRIS

INMATE'S SLAYING PROBED

Mary Jo Pitzl
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 19, 2006 12:00 AM

The new system that state prison officials use to classify inmates probably didn't contribute to the murder last fall of an inmate who was placed in a cell with a convicted murderer, the director of the state Department of Corrections said today.

Dora Schriro told lawmakers that her agency is exploring five different theories of what led to the Sept. 7 death of William Harris.

Harris, who was stabbed in the chest with a homemade knife, beaten about the head and apparently strangled, was doing time for drug offenses. His cellmate, who has been named as a suspect in Harris' death, was a convicted murderer.

The agency had retooled its system for classifying prisoners before Harris' most recent incarceration.

But Schriro, answering a question from state Sen. Bob Burns, R- Peoria, said she doesn't think the system had a bearing on Harris' fate.

"Increasingly, we do not believe the classification has had an impact on this situation," she said.

She declined further comment, citing an ongoing investigation into the death by the corrections department's inspector general.

BLUNDERS RESULT IN DEATH OF PRISON INMATE

Michael Clancy
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 23, 2007 08:07 PM

A series of blunders were committed by personnel at a state prison in Florence that resulted in the killing of an inmate, an Arizona Corrections Department investigation has revealed.

Fourteen employees, including John Ontiveros, the warden of the Eyman Complex in Florence , were disciplined in the case, according to the report released Tuesday.

William Harris was killed Sept. 7, 2006, just hours after he was transferred from another facility and placed in the same cell as Michael Gaston, who was charged in the case. Gaston was serving a life sentence for murder, while Harris was in prison serving time for drug and sex offenses.

"Proper procedures were in place. What we ran into was human error," said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Katie Decker.

The errors included a variety of mix-ups, from not filing proper forms on inmate classifications in a timely manner to simple mistakes on the forms.

In one instance, a guard announced to other inmates that Harris was a sex offender. Sex offenders typically are segregated from the rest of the prison population to protect their safety.

Decker said cells were not searched properly and medical records were not transferred on time.

The report said Gaston may have been improperly allowed on a work detail, which might have enabled him to have access to materials he could use to fashion a weapon.

Of the 14 employees who were disciplined, Decker said:

• One was fired.

• One was demoted.

• Four were suspended.

• Three received written reprimands.

• One resigned.

• Two retired.

She declined to provide the employees' names.

Ontiveros was one of those who left the department.

CLINT YARBROUGH

FAMILY SUES OVER JAIL DEATH
County shouldn't have put man in restraint chair, it says

Jahna Berry
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 22, 2006 12:00 AM

The family of an inmate who died after being strapped into a device that has been blamed for other deaths filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on Tuesday against Maricopa County and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Clint Yarbrough's parents and children allege that the 33-year-old Valley man died in December 2005 because he did not receive medical treatment after he was buckled into a restraint chair at the Fourth Avenue Jail.

Arpaio removed restraint chairs from county jails in August after the controversial device had been used since the 1970s and has been blamed for three deaths in the past 10 years.

It also has cost the county millions in legal expenses.

"For 10 years, the county's own consultants have been warning them to stop using these chairs," said Michael Manning, who has represented the two other families in similar wrongful-death suits. The lawsuit filed Tuesday also names the Sheriff's Office, the county supervisors and Maricopa County Correctional Health Services.

In March, a federal jury awarded $9 million to the family of Charles Agster III, a 33-year-old mentally retarded man who died in 2001 after he was strapped in a restraint chair. The county has said that it plans to appeal the verdict. In 1999, the county agreed to pay $8.25 million to the family of Scott Norberg, 33, an inmate who died in 1996 after he was put into a restraint chair.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Office spokesman Lt. Paul Chagolla said it would be premature for his office to comment on the lawsuit. "The Sheriff's Office has retained counsel and will defend its interests vigorously," he said.

In the past, Arpaio has said that the two previous deaths were caused by methamphetamine, not the device.

The Yarbrough lawsuit doesn't list a dollar figure for compensation. But as a precursor to the lawsuit, Yarbrough's family filed a $15 million claim against the county, Manning said.

Like Agster and Norberg, Yarbrough used meth.

And Yarbrough had it in his system then he walked into a Phoenix convenience store in December 2005 and asked the store clerk to call 911 because he felt sick, according to Manning and the lawsuit.

When police arrived and tried to pull him to the ground, Yarbrough resisted. He was taken to the Fourth Avenue Jail and put into a restraint chair, according to the lawsuit.

Yarbrough died because the Sheriff's Office violated its own procedures, Manning said.

No doctor was consulted before Yarborough was confined to a chair, as required under county rules.

Also, jail medical personnel failed to monitor him, Manning said.

Although health workers injected Yarbrough with a "cocktail" of medication to subdue him, "they didn't take his vital signs," Manning said.

In August, Arpaio announced that "safe beds" would replace the restraint chairs.

The beds, which are outfitted with straps, are used as a last resort to restrain combative inmates.

At the time, Arpaio said it was "time to move in the direction of what many hospitals and psychiatric wards do to restrain combative people."

FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL

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Duda's award-winning film unflinchingly documents the whole story the U.S. government and the state of Arkansas have tried to keep hidden from the world.

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to order your own copy of
"Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal"

Click the photo of Kelly Duda at work to visit the
Factor 8 Documentary website

Please help spread the word about this important film,
along with the urls to the linked pages.

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Linda Tant Miller
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