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Former inmate sues Cocke County over jail conditions, says he was left for 12 hours after being beaten
After years of concerns centered on the conditions in the Cocke County Jail, the county and several officials are facing a lawsuit from a former inmate.
The suit, filed on behalf of Steven J. Laws, alleges that Laws, who was jailed in March of 2022 on misdemeanor drug charges, was beaten by fellow inmates on his first day then left unchecked in his cell for 12 hours before being denied medical service by jail officials.
Laws' main complaints about his experience center on an ongoing issue at the jail: not enough corrections officers in charge of too many inmates.
The Cocke County Jail has faced problems for years, losing its Tennessee Correctional Institute certification in 2017 due to poor living conditions for inmates, overcrowding and understaffing. During a 2017 visit, then-Chief Deputy Derrick Woods showed WVLT News rotting ceilings, holes in the floor and leaks.
Ex-inmate files $1.5M suit against Cocke County
A lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District court in Greeneville by a former inmate at Cocke County Jail, alleging he suffered serious injuries as a result of being beaten by other inmates at the jail in March 2022.
The suit is seeking at least $500,000 in compensatory damages and at least $1 million in punitive damages.
The suit filed by attorney Lance K. Baker of The Baker Law Firm in Knoxville on behalf of Steven J. Laws names Cocke County, former Cocke County Sheriff Armando Fontes and several others as defendants in the civil rights action.
6th Circuit upholds decision to strip Knoxville cop of immunity in shooting
A federal appellate court is upholding a decision to strip a Knoxville Police Department officer of immunity in a wrongful death lawsuit over the officer's shooting of an unarmed man in the back.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals turned aside an appeal by KPD Officer Dylan Williams, who fatally shot an unarmed Channara Tom "Philly" Pheap in August 2019 in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Merchant Drive in Knoxville.
Grainger County settles suit over “sex shows” in jail
Grainger County taxpayers will be shelling out $110,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging a former corrections officer forced female inmates to put on "sex shows" that he viewed from atop milk crates in a control room as he masturbated, records show.
Mother Files Lawsuit Against Scott County Sheriff For 2016 Jailhouse Death Of Her Son
Donna Jean Sexton-Pemberton filed a $5 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Scott County, Tennessee, and its sheriff, Ronnie Phillips, for the July 20, 2016 death of her son, Benny Shane Pemberton. Lance Baker of The Baker Law Firm, is representing Ms. Sexton-Pemberton in the litigation.
Learn about how a cut on Benny's foot led to his death, what the lawsuit alleges happened to him while in Scott County custody, and who else is named in the suit by reading an online article about it on the WBIR 10 news site.
Knox County And KCSO Face $5M Lawsuit Over Treatment Of Mentally Ill Inmate
A November 2014 staff beating of a Knox County jail inmate, caught on video, is at the center of a $5 million lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in late 2015. Lance Baker, founder of The Baker Law Firm, is representing Louis Flack. The suit alleges that Flack's civil rights were violated by the Knox County Sheriff's Office personnel involved in the beating as they were moving him from one cell to another. The lawsuit further alleges that the jail's personnel are ill-equipped to deal with mentally ill inmates such as Flack, whose condition causes him to sometimes be angry, combative and paranoid.
Learn more about the suit, and how the county is responding to requests for better treatment for mentally ill inmates, in this article in USA Today.
Former Hamblen County inmate files $5M Civil Rights Violation Lawsuit Over Beating By Fellow Inmate
Lance Baker of The Baker Law Firm is representing Jeremy Garcia, a Knox County man who alleges he received a jailhouse beating in 2015 severe enough to cause memory loss and ongoing depression and in which he suffered multiple facial fractures. Garcia alleges that his jailers did little or nothing to protect him from more dangerous inmates who threatened him multiple times. Learn about which county officials are named in the $5 million civil rights violation suit, and how a $38 debt and two boxes of pop-tarts figured into the incident in this news article.
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