Alabama committee approves $1 million in legal contracts for ADOC

A gate opens at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, Alabama on October 22, 2019. (File)

The Contract Review Committee approved five legal contracts for the Alabama Department of Corrections totaling $1 million to defend corrections officers accused of violence or neglect that led to the deaths of incarcerated people.

Each two-year contract is worth $200,000 at a rate of $195 per hour. The five contracts went to three attorneys.

Clay Crenshaw, the chief deputy attorney general, said the contracts allow the attorneys to continue representing corrections officers and the DOC for cases, with some of them going as far back as 2020. The cases are ongoing, and the legal services contract is set to expire soon, according to the accompanying committee packet.

Two of the contracts were awarded to Albert Jordan of Wallace Jordan Ratliff & Brandt, LLC, based out of Birmingham.

The first contract awarded to Jordan lists the plaintiff as Mary Abrams, but the case could not be located in PACER.

The second lawsuit was filed by Laventra Denise Rutledge, who alleged that five corrections officers at William Donaldson Correctional facility in Bessemer allowed his brother,  Thomas Lee Rutledge, to die in prison from excessive heat in December 2020.

According to the lawsuit, Thomas Lee Rutledge was placed in a cell in which the temperature was reported to be between 101-104 degrees. He was later found unresponsive and his body temperature was recorded at 109 degrees.

Corrections claims the death is an accident, and says saying that the high temperature was an anomaly given that the outside temperature was below freezing. The department argues the incident could not be blamed on Corrections staff unless they intentionally acted to increase the temperature in the cell.

Two other contracts went to Philip Piggott of Rushton, Stakely, Johnston & Garrett, P.A. based in Montgomery to represent Corrections out of case in the Middle District of Alabama. According to the accompanying committee report, the plaintiff is Ed Parrish, but the case could not be located in PACER.

The Alabama Reflector reached out to the Attorney General’s Office and the DOC for comment regarding the cases that could not be found in PACER.

In a second case, Sondra Ray alleged that Corrections officers at Donaldson beat her son Steven Davis to death.

According to the complaint, a person who was incarcerated taunted Davis regarding sexual matters that escalated over a couple of days in October 2019. Davis then attacked the other individual who was taunting him with a plastic shank. Corrections officers intervened and Davis surrendered to the officers.

The lawsuit alleges that the officers assaulted Davis and stomped on his head, leading to his death.

The Alabama Attorney General’s Office, representing DOC said the facts do not rise to the level of what is alleged in the suit and are claiming absolute and sovereign immunity as well as qualified immunity for the corrections officers.

The fifth contract went to W. Allen Sheehan of Capell & Howard, P.C. for a lawsuit filed by William Smith, the father of Michael Smith.

According to the lawsuit, Michael Smith and another inmate at Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton were involved in an altercation over a stolen pack of coffee in November 2019. Corrections officers intervened to return the two inmates to their cells, but Michael Smith was instead escorted to the hallway of the shift office separating two dorms.

The lawsuit says that Michael Smith became agitated while he was getting escorted, and says that one of the officers beat Michael Smith with a chair on his head and body until he was unresponsive.

The defendants denied beating Michael Smith, according to the response that was filed to the complaint.

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