A man died at the Somerset County Jail because of deliberately withheld medical care and a failure to train staff, a lawsuit alleges.
Mitchell Watson, 35, of Dexter died shortly after 1 a.m., Feb. 6, 2023, at the jail in Madison. Corrections staff had not provided adequate medical care for more than 12 hours, despite Watson’s obvious need for help, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
The lawsuit — brought by Watson’s father, Millar Watson — names Somerset County, Sheriff Dale Lancaster, Assistant Jail Administrator Michael Pike and Supervisor of Corrections Officers Joshua Bowden.
“It is always a tragedy when an individual dies in a correctional facility,” Lancaster said. “Due to the ongoing litigation, I am unable to comment on any particular portion of this lawsuit at this time.”
A failure to train staff to care for medical needs and their deliberate indifference to Watson’s health violated his Eighth Amendment rights, the lawsuit said. It also alleges the failure to provide adequate medical care contributed to Watson’s death, meaning staff violated Maine’s wrongful death law.
Watson entered the Somerset County Jail on Feb. 2, 2023, and four days later died from “exposure to drugs.” His obituary did not list a cause of death, and there was no information about Watson’s death from the sheriff’s office.
During that time there was an “influx” of drugs into the jail, which staff knew about, according to the lawsuit.
On Feb. 5, Watson’s cellmate told a corrections officer that Watson was behaving oddly. The officer, who was “uncertified, untrained, unsupervised and unassisted,” attempted to wake Watson up that evening, the lawsuit said.
Watson could not be woken up.
The officer reported this to her supervisor, Bowden, who ignored it, according to the lawsuit. She called Bowden a second time, who then made a “perfunctory attempt to get [Watson] to respond to stimuli but ultimately gave up and simply left [Watson] ultimately to die,” the lawsuit said.
Staff are supposed to check on prisoners every 15 minutes and write observations in a log, but that check was ignored for around 12 hours, the lawsuit said.
An opioid overdose antidote was either not administered or not used in a timely fashion, according to the lawsuit.
Conduct from all people named in the lawsuit was “negligent, reckless, willful, wanton, malicious and in bad faith,” the lawsuit said.
A lack of training meant staff were not adequately prepared to respond to Watson’s medical needs because it was “foreseeable” a prisoner may be exposed to illegal drugs and need care, the lawsuit said.
No court dates are scheduled.
