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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Crime & Police |
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Jail Suicide Updates: Some Responsibility Taken, More Conflict of Interest Revealed |
Current rating: 0 |
by Sandra Ahten
Email: spiritofsandra (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
11 Feb 2005
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Jail Suicide Updates:
Sheriff Takes Some Responsibility in Layfield death.
Major Conflict of Interest is Revealed
>Press Conference.mp3 (listen to the full press conference here) |
 sheriff.mp3 (280 k) Sheriff Answers Questions Surrounding Jail Suicide |
PROCEDURE NOT FOLLOWED
Champaign County Jail had three apparent suicides last year and Champaign County Sheriff Dan Walsh is taking some responsibility for procedural lapses that took place when the last death occurred. The death of Terrell Layfield, which happened in the downtown facility on December 4th, was discussed at a press conference held by the Sheriff on Wednesday Feb. 9th. Sandra Ahten of CU-Citizens for Peace and Justice (CUCPJ) attended the press conference and provided information for this report.
Sheriff Walsh said that his investigation is not yet complete and so details surrounding the death of victim Terrell Layfield could not be released. He did acknowledge that the written procedure of the jail is to make "eyeball" checks of individuals on a specific timetable. Sheriff Walsh said this was not done at the time of Terrell’s death and instead only a visual check of the cell block, as a whole, was made. He said the correct procedure was followed during the other two deaths but those took place at the satellite jail facility that has a system that requires a computer check of the officer. Mr. Layfield’s death was at the downtown facility. Sheriff Walsh indicated that no officer has been reprimanded for not following policy in this instance and that the policy had been routinely ignored for many years.
There are many unanswered questions that still remain surrounding the death of Terrell Layfield. If you would like to know the nature of these questions, listen to the entire press conference and how the Sheriff explains some details surrounding Layfield's death and avoids answering others. You can listen to the audio at www.ucimc.org
According to Walsh, the Urbana City Police have finished their investigation and the report should be available. However the Freedom of Information Act that was filed to obtain the reports came back with a denial because The Urbana City Police report the investigation was still pending. (2/11/05)
A MAJOR CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The Sheriff could not start his investigation until the Champaign County States Attorney had determined that no criminal charges were to be filed. Sandra Ahten, spoke with Julia Reitz, the Champaign States Attorney, on Tuesday Feb. 8th. In response to Ahten’s complaints of the delays in the release of information about the alleged suicides, she was told by Reitz that the Sheriff was following her advice, as she is the Sheriff's lawyer. As his lawyer, she directed him not to release any information until the investigation was complete. Ahten clarified with both Walsh and Reitz the fact that the Champaign States Attorney is the attorney of record for the Sheriff’s office. radio.ucimc.org/audio/q1.mp3
This means that if the Sheriff were to be sued, the States Attorney would be his defense counsel. The conflict of interest is in that the States Attorney is also responsible for deciding if the suicide gets investigated as a criminal matter and whether to file charges. In this case the States Attorney would be both prosecution and defense.
Of course, conflicts of interest can routinely arise in the States Attorney’s office. In cases of conflict of interest the States Attorney should turn the cases over to the States Attorney General and the States Attorney General would assign a special prosecutor. CUFPJ is currently educating themselves on these relationships and procedures in order to fully understand why Ms. Reitz has not decided to pursue the matter along these lines. Instead, according Sheriff Walsh, Ms. Reitz made the decision not to pursue any further investigation or prosecution. Sheriff Walsh said that he has absolute confidence in Ms. Reitz and her integrity but it was her decision not to pursue the matter. radio.ucimc.org/audio/q2.mp3
There is another conflict of interest that Sheriff Walsh does not acknowledge and so will not be resolved -- and that is the the Urbana City Police are performing the investigation as the impartial outside
investigating agency. The Sheriff believes they are impartial although he acknowledges that they have a cooperative working relationship with the County Sheriffs Department. Indeed the arrestees of Urbana Police are housed at the jail and the Urbana Police have access to the prisoners at the jail.
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radio.ucimc.org/audio/q3.mp3
CORONER RULING NOT YET DETERMINED
The coroner’s jury is scheduled to hear the evidence in the death of Terrell Layfield on Thursday Feb 17. The death has not yet been ruled a suicide by County Coroner, Duane Northrup. It was scheduled to be heard in January but was postponed.
WHAT THE CITIZENS WANT
The group CU Citizens for Peace and Justice believe that it should not be up to citizens to read police and autopsy reports and interpret them. They believe the county should insist that this matter is cleared up beyond all doubt. That can only be done if there is a criminal investigation into all three in-custody deaths by an outside agency that does not have a cooperative relationship with the County Sheriff’s office.
Sandra Ahten of the group says this, We do not want an adversarial relationship with the Sheriff, States Attorney or County Board but the fact is that all three of these agencies are employed by us, the citizens. They may trust each other and feel comfortable with relying on each others known relationship. It is obvious that they do; in my conversations with them, "trust" just keeps coming up again and again. County Board President, Barb Wysocki has told me she trusts the Sheriff. The Sheriff has said he trusts the Urbana City Police and States Attorney, Julia Reitz. Julia Reitz has told me she trusts the Sheriff. I was reprimanded by Reitz for my lack of trust. I fully understand trusting your peers, but these folks must acknowledge that it is the public whose trust they must earn. I don’t think they will earn the public’s trust until they acknowledge that someone outside of their own network, someone they don’t have lunch with, takes a look at these deaths and explains to the public how they could have happened. |
This work is in the public domain |
