Stephanie Lewis on Thursday was fighting to learn more about how her husband died at Childersburg Work Release facility in Alpine on Wednesday. No one would tell her where his body was. And there were rumors that his death was the result of excessive force by officers.

Rodrequis Woods, 42, was pronounced dead at a local hospital, an officer told her by phone, but the circumstances around his death were shrouded in secrecy a day later. As of Thursday afternoon his grieving widow still did not know basic information about her husband’s death. 

Reached by phone on Thursday, an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC)employee declined to tell Mrs. Lewis where his body was located and said it was unclear to the employee whether he’d receive a full autopsy or just a toxicology screening, Mrs. Lewis told Appleseed. 

Stephanie Lewis and her husband, Rodrequis Woods, who died in prison at age 42

Mrs. Lewis, who has been active in criminal justice reform efforts and who has attended Appleseed events as recently as November, said she first learned of her husband’s death in a call around 8pm on Wednesday from a woman whom she didn’t know. An Alabama Department of Corrections officer later called to confirm the death, and alleged that drugs were involved upon Woods returning from his job at the Sylacauga Housing Authority. 

Mrs. Lewis said the officer told her, “I think he put something in his mouth and he started having a seizure” but she added that her husband had never abused drugs, but had in fact been experiencing some unknown medical issues in recent months. She also learned from a social media post of allegations that officers at the work release center may have had a role in his death, an allegation that hasn’t been confirmed. Since then, Mrs. Lewis has been frantically reaching out to advocates, journalists, and other families for the information she desperately needs.

Appleseed reached out to ADOC with questions on Mr. Woods’s death, but as of Thursday afternoon hadn’t received a response. Appleseed is also seeking to speak to others at the facility. 

ADOC no longer provides full autopsies for all who die in prison, following UAB Hospital’s April 22, 2024, termination of its longstanding agreement with ADOC to conduct autopsies and toxicology screens on suspected natural and overdose deaths. 

The agreement had ADOC paying $2,200 per autopsy and $100 per toxicology test, according to court documents in a lawsuit. That revenue may not have outweighed the fallout from a lawsuit in which families discovered their incarcerated loved ones’ bodies had been returned missing internal organs. Since UAB terminated its contract, in-custody deaths from natural causes or suspected overdoses are no longer receiving state-provided full autopsies, leaving many families unsure how their loved ones died.

“All inmate deaths are investigated by the ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division. However, under existing state law, post-mortem examinations or autopsies are only required for deaths resulting from unlawful, suspicious, or unnatural causes (Ala. Code Section 36-18-2). In those cases, the deceased is transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy,” ADOC wrote in a statement to Appleseed in May 2024, when Appleseed first reported UAB’s contract termination.

“Deaths not covered under Ala. Code Section 36-18-2 receives a toxicology screen prior to release to the inmate’s family. Although the department previously contracted with UAB Hospital to conduct autopsies on suspected overdose or natural deaths, UAB terminated its long-standing agreement effective April 22, 2024. Since that time, the department has made numerous inquiries but has been unable to find another vendor to provide autopsies for ADOC inmates who died of natural causes or suspected overdoses,” the statement continued. 

Mr. Woods has also recently exhibited symptoms of an unknown medical issue, and two months before he died had called his wife to tell her that he’d gotten dizzy and fainted. He was checked out by an ADOC nurse and his vital signs were good, she said. They were never able to determine what caused that medical incident. “I tried not to worry about it, but I was concerned,” Mrs. Lewis said of the fainting incident. Mr. Woods did have a diagnosis of sickle cell disease.

The couple had been together for 18 years and married for the last eight. Mrs. Lewis’s 14-year-old son, whom she adopted as an infant, has only ever known Mr. Woods as his father. The two were very close, she said. Mrs. Lewis and her son visited with Mr. Woods just last Sunday. The couple talked by phone every day. 

Stephanie Lewis and Rodrequis Woods had been married 8 years. He died after returning to prison from his work release job.

“As long as he doesn’t see me break down, he’s okay,” Mrs. Lewis said of her son, who asked to stay home from school on Thursday to be with her. “And I said no, because if you’re at home, we’re just gonna sit here and cry together.” 

Mrs. Lewis described her husband as a devoted football fan, who played football while in college at the University of West Alabama, and at Miles College  Mr. Woods began his life with the possibility of parole sentence in 2004. His next possible parole hearing date was scheduled for 2027, and he’d already received recommendations for release from an outside law enforcement officer and an ADOC officer, she said. 

A reduction of transparency surrounding in-custody deaths in Alabama comes as state prisons are seeing more deaths than ever. Alabama prisons in 2023 saw record high deaths for a second straight year, with 327 lives lost. More people died in Alabama prisons per capita than in any state in the nation in 2024, and at a rate that was nearly double those of the next highest state.

ADOC has yet to honor Appleseed’s request sent in December for the names and dates of death for those who died in Alabama prisons in 2025. 

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Deandre Roney died June 9, 2024, after being stabbed at Donaldson Prison.

There were 277 deaths in Alabama prisons in 2024, a slight decline from the record high 325 from the previous year, but the state’s prison deaths remain more than four times the national average. Appleseed obtained last year’s death count through a records request to the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). 

Although the official count from ADOC puts last year’s deaths at 277, the actual number could be higher. Appleseed’s records request to ADOC last year seeking the names and dates of death for those incarcerated persons who died in 2023 produced a list that included 325 deaths, which was a record high, but subsequent records requests to the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, which collected in custody death data from ADOC for submission to the federal government, and ADOC’s own quarterly reports, included deaths that were not identified in the 325 supplied to Appleseed by ADOC. Appleseed is working to clarify the actual number of deaths in 2023. 

Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate is 1,358 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average across state prisons of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The large numbers of deaths last year only add to the tally of deaths since the federal government put Alabama on notice. There have been 1,322 deaths in Alabama prisons from the April 2019 release of the U.S. Department of Justice’s report detailing the horrific violence and unconstitutionally dangerous conditions in the state’s prisons through the end of last year. 

The federal government in December 2020 sued the state and the Department of Corrections alleging that the state “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff.” The state has paid private, contract attorneys more than $20 million to defend these conditions and the trial has been pushed until April, 2026.

These deaths take a toll on families across the state, devastating parents, siblings, and others who held out hope that their incarcerated loved ones would someday be free and home with them. The following are just a few of the many deaths we’ve learned about this year:

Klifton Adam Bond (source Facebook)

The fourth person to die in 2024 was Klifton Adam Bond, 38, who was found dead in his cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility on Jan. 4, 2024. Mr. Bond was attacked on Nov. 6, 2023 at Donaldson Correctional Facility and remained in a hospital intensive care unit for 12 days, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of his mother. 

Joshua Hamer with his son Joey (photo courtesy of his family)

A more recent death was that of Joshua Hamer, a 41-year-old father who was beaten to death in November. He’d been incarcerated on a probation violation stemming from an 8-year-old theft conviction for not returning Redbox rental movies and video game disks in 2016, according to court records. 

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 in the minutes after his father last spoke to him by phone.

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4, 2024, in what the autopsy shows that the state’s medical examiner believes was an accidental “mixed Drug toxicity (fentanyl and fluorofentanyl).”

“I know why he was in the prison, but he shouldn’t have died there,” Mr. Mathis’s father, Tim Mathis, told Appleseed. He places the blame for his son’s overdose death squarely on the back of ADOC for allowing drugs inside the prisons. 

Kerry Dale Presnell, 36, was beaten and killed on Nov. 14, 2024, at Elmore Correctional Facility. 

Jamal Wilson, 38, was assaulted at Elmore Correctional Facility and died on Nov. 1, 2024. ADOC said at the time that he was found unresponsive on his bed and had a head injury and abrasions on both legs. 

Deandre Roney was one of four men at Donaldson Correctional Facility who died over a three-day period in June. Mr, Roney died June 9, 2024, at UAB Hospital after being stabbed in his back and in his head. Mr. Roney and his family had begged ADOC to keep him safe from a man who’d already stabbed him once, but he was not moved to safety.

Several of these families have appeared at the Legislative Joint Prison Oversight Committee to share their stories. Lawmakers on that committee have shown increasing concern for holding state officials more accountable for Alabama’s dangerous prisons. The committee meets next on January 22 at 10:30 am in room 807 in the Alabama Statehouse. 

Appleseed is working to investigate Alabama prison deaths. If you have information to share with us about the death of a loved one in the Alabama prison systems, please contact us at admin@alabamaappleseed.org.

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St. Clair Correctional Facility (photo by Bernard Troncale)

Days before the close of 2024, a 53-year-old incarcerated man at St. Clair Correctional Facility was beaten by an officer, requiring hospitalization, according to sources, who tell Appleseed the man was handcuffed when beaten. 

That officer, whom those sources identify as Sergeant Jajuan Howard, has been placed on a “noncontact post pending the outcome of the investigation,” an Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) spokeswoman told Appleseed in a response Thursday. 

Stephen Shamburger’s injuries required hospitalization following the December 27th “Use of Force” incident, the spokeswoman’s response noted. Her reply didn’t name the officer or include details about what occurred.

Mr. Shamburger has been incarcerated for nearly 30 years. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole following a 1995 robbery conviction in Jefferson County. At the time, the sentence was mandatory under Alabama’s Habitual Felony Offender Act based on the fact that he had three prior nonviolent felonies: two drug possession convictions and a conviction for breaking into a vehicle. Mr. Shamburger would be eligible for a much shorter sentence under laws in place today. 

Earnestine Shamburger, Mr. Shamburger’s mother, told Appleseed On Tuesday that she hadn’t received information from ADOC on her son’s condition, other than a brief phone call with an employee this week at St. Clair prison who mistakenly told her that her son was at UAB and was to be taken off a ventilator soon. 

“She didn’t tell me anything about what his condition was or how it happened.” Mrs. Shamburger said. “When we were talking she made the mistake of saying the name of UAB hospital, but when I questioned her about where he’s at she said she couldn’t tell me.” 

Mrs. Shamburger on Tuesday filled out an online form on ADOC’s website on Tuesday that family member can use to seek information about incarcerated loved ones, but as of Thursday morning she told Appleseed she has still not received a call regarding her son, and her attempts to reach someone at the prison Thursday morning were unsuccessful. 

“I’ve been calling all morning and I can’t get anybody,” Mrs. Shamburger said. “I’m about to worry myself to death thinking about what his situation is.” 

Mrs. Shamburger also expressed her desire to see the officer held to account. The ADOC spokeswoman told Appleseed that the department’s Law Enforcement Services Division is investigating the incident. 

Sgt. Howard is named in a July 2024 lawsuit filed in federal court that alleges he “punched Plaintiff in his left eye” and held the plaintiff in that suit while two other officers “struck Plaintiff in the face with a baton” and “continued to hit and/or kick him.” That alleged beating continued, and those officers allegedly “continuously stomped, kicked, and assaulted” the man. 

“Plaintiff was beat in and out of consciousness. He remembers hearing one of the Defendants state that he was “going to UAB today” and that he was “gonna die Today,” the lawsuit reads. 

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Joshua Hamer with his son Joey (photo courtesy of his family)

After he was beaten on Nov. 6th, Joshua Hamer was placed back into his bunk at Bibb Correctional Facility unconscious, and wasn’t found until the next day. He never regained consciousness and died 16 days later. 

Mr. Hamer, who was 41, was imprisoned on a probation violation stemming from an 8-year-old theft conviction for not returning Redbox rental movies and video game disks in 2016, according to court records. 

Injuries to his brain were so severe that doctors at a local hospital told the family they were unable to perform surgery on his other injuries due to the severity of his brain damage. 

Judy Hamer, his aunt whom he lived with for the three years prior to entering prison, told Appleseed the family made the difficult decision to remove him from life support after he’d been in the hospital for 17 days. He died hours later, on November 23rd.

“His face was just literally kicked in….I just lost it. I was trying to be brave and I just lost it,” Ms. Hamer said of the moment he was removed from life support. 

An investigator with the state called Ms. Hamer and said they had identified three suspects in his death and may have a fourth, Ms. Hamer said. The family has heard an officer may have also been involved in allowing the other men to leave their dorm and enter Mr. Hamer’s, but it’s not yet clear. The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) declined to answer Appleseed’s question as to whether anyone has been charged in Mr. Hamer’s death. 

“Inmate Joshua Joseph Hamer was admitted to UAB Hospital on November 6, 2024, for life-threatening injuries sustained in an inmate assault. He was pronounced deceased by an attending physician,” an ADOC spokeswoman told Appleseed. 

A good person who fell into addiction

A day prior to the beating Mr. Hamer called his aunt and asked her to send $50 so he could pay a man he owed money to. She didn’t know what he owed money for, but she suspects whomever he owed the money to may have beaten him regardless. 

“What bothers me is, what are they gonna do about it?,” asked Ms. Hamer. She wants to see justice done in her nephew’s death, and hopes the investigator was telling the truth when she told her she’d prosecute the death to the fullest. 

Ms. Hamer described her nephew as a good person who fell into drug addiction. He’d lost both parents by the time he moved in with Ms. Hamer, three years before he was sent to prison on the probation revocation. “He was a great electrician who could hook up anything and make it work,” Ms. Hamer said. He apprenticed with an electrician for a time and enjoyed working in construction, she said. 

Mr. Hamer had a 20-year-old son and two younger children.

“I have cried and cried and cried. Right now I’m mad, and when I get mad I want to do something,” Ms. Hamer said. The problem is, she’s unsure of what to do, she said. She hopes the investigator follows through with her promise to fully prosecute his killer or killers. 

“I don’t want him just walking around in there thinking, I got away with this because, what else can they do to me?,” Ms. Hamer said. 

Ms. Hamer’s fear that those who killed her nephew may not be held to account are warranted. To date, no one has been charged in the brutal kidnapping and assault death of Daniel Terry Williams, 22, who died the day he was set to be released, raising concerns that those who commit deadly assaults in Alabama prisons may believe they can do so with impunity. 

“so overcrowded it’s awful and I’m in here for not returning Redbox games and movies”

Mr. Hamer’s criminal record shows a history of drug and property offenses. He pled guilty to escape from a work release center in Decatur in 2009. 

The original charge that resulted in his 115 month sentence, of which he was to serve 19 months, was first-degree theft of property for not returning rental movies and games, according to court records. Those offenses occurred in April 2016 and he was arrested on the theft charge in December 2018. The indictment against Mr, Hamer states he failed to return “numerous Redbox movies and game disks” with a value of $7,124.19.  Redbox filed for bankruptcy in June 2024, which was 14 months after Mr. Hamer’s probation was revoked, and a judge a month later ordered the company to liquidate its assets and shutter the business. 

In September 2021, Mr. Hamer was arrested on drug possession charges, and coupled with not paying fees and not reporting to his probation officer as required under the Redbox theft conviction, a judge agreed to revoke his probation. He was ordered to serve the remainder of his 115-month sentence in prison, court records show. 

In February of this year Mr. Hamer wrote to a Madison County judge and asked that his probation reinstated, and said that since he’d been in prison he was baptized, had a construction job waiting for him in Huntsville. “My way has never worked so I’m going to try all this a different way,” he wrote to the judge. “Let God’s will in my life guide my life…I’m just asking [sic] one chance to prove myself to society.” The judge denied his motion. 

He wrote another Madison County judge in September of this year, just 41 days before he was attacked, asking the judge to help him. He wrote that the prison was “so overcrowded it’s awful and I’m in here for not returning Redbox games and movies,” and that “I love myself now.  Have a reason to want to live.” The judge hadn’t issued an order in response to his letter, court records show. 

Bibb Correctional Facility was at 198 percent capacity in September, the last month for which the Alabama Department of Corrections has published those figures. 

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Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death on November 9, 2022 inside Staton Correctional Facility.

Daniel Terry Williams, 22, was likely smothered to death a year ago on Saturday, according to the state’s chief medical examiner, and there was evidence on his body that corroborate what witnesses have said was his kidnapping and torture over a period of several days inside Staton Correctional Facility. He died the day he was set to be released from prison. 

Despite witnesses who saw Mr. Williams being held against his will in a secure prison staffed with officers, and despite clear medical evidence pointing to homicide and a suspect identified, that suspect has not been charged in Mr. Williams’s death. To date, no one has been criminally charged in connection with his death. 

In a prison system where frequent, violent deaths are common, the homicide of Mr. Williams stood out for a number of reasons: he was serving a short sentence for a minor crime, he was scheduled for release within days, his torture over a prolonged period went undetected for days, and his assailant had a long record of institutional violence that went unaddressed. 

And now, it appears, no one will be held accountable for this young man’s suffering and death.

“Insufficient probable cause to issue an indictment”

The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) Law Enforcement Services Division completed its investigation and forwarded those findings in July to the Elmore County District Attorney’s Office for presentation of a criminal case to the grand jury, an ADOC spokeswoman told Appleseed. 

“The case involving the death of Daniel Williams was investigated by the I&I Division of DOC,” wrote 19th Judicial Circuit District Attorney CJ Robinson in a response to Appleseed last week. He referred to ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division as I&I, which is the abbreviation of the division’s former name, the Investigations and Intelligence Division. 

“The completed casefile was submitted to the 19th Judicial Circuit DA’s Office several weeks ago and presented to the first available Grand Jury in Elmore County (October 2024). After hearing the details of the investigation, the grand jury determined there was insufficient probable cause to issue an indictment,” Mr. Robinson said. 

In Mr. Williams’ case, the grand jury had the opportunity to hear from investigators and review any video footage before being presented with three possible offenses to indict on: murder, manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide, Mr. Robinson told Appleseed. 

“They took a long amount of time to hear the evidence and for their deliberations,” he said. But ultimately, they failed to receive 12 votes to indict. 

Mr. Robinson also shared that if additional evidence or witnesses surface that might change the grand jury vote, he would consider re-presenting the case, which is something he has done in the past. 

“Diffuse abrasions and contusions on his upper extremities that may be defensive in nature”

Dr. Edward Reedy, chief medical examiner for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, conducted the autopsy, and his report includes details of Mr. Williams’ tragic last few days. 

“There is evidence of ligature restraint on the decedent’s ankles and contusions on various locations that are also suggestive of manual restraint,” Mr. Reedy wrote in the report, also noting there were “Multiple abrasions and contusions in varying states of healing” and “diffuse abrasions and contusions on his upper extremities that may be defensive in nature….The cause of death was probable asphyxia due to smothering.” 

Mr. Williams’ death, along with the deaths of numerous other incarcerated Alabamians, was brought to the attention of the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee, which has held multiple public hearings in the last six months with several committee members showing increased concern about Alabama’s deadly prisons.

Appleseed’s executive director, Carla Crowder, addressed the Committee in a December 2023 meeting. “The 38-year-old suspect in this kidnapping, rape and torture was involved in nine instances of sex assault, rape, and stabbing since 2017 in ADOC while incarcerated. … There is no documentation that he was placed in segregation for any of these assaults. There was no disciplinary action by ADOC.”

“His classification summary showed a five-year clear record of institutional violence, which resulted in a perfect score of zero in risk assessment conducted in October, and a total score low enough for him to be placed in medium security in an open bay dorm. The psych associates signed off on this and the warden signed off on this,” Mrs. Crowder told committee members. “Nine days later, 22-year-old Daniel Williams … was found, according to ADOC, unresponsive on this inmate’s assigned bed.”

The 22-year-old’s death caught the attention of journalists across the U.S. and abroad. AL.com’s John Archibald in January noted that ADOC’s records identify the suspect as being one who assaulted Williams on Oct. 22, 2023. Archibald identifies the suspect as “Inmate X” in his article, as the man hadn’t been charged.  

“Inmate Williams was found unresponsive on (Inmate X’s) assigned bed,” a DOC report says, according to Mr. Archibald’s reporting. “It appeared that victim had been assaulted. (Inmate X and two others) were believed to be involved in this incident.”

“Alabama prison officials wrote that report on Nov. 8, the day before Williams was taken off life support, two weeks after the assault, and only after Williams’ family hired a lawyer,” Mr. Archibald wrote. “Williams was declared dead the next day.”

ADOC didn’t classify the assault as a crime or levy a disciplinary charge, Mr. Archibald noted, but instead simply wrote the matter up as an “enemies report” which are supposed to be used to keep disputing incarcerated people from one-another. 

Mr. Williams’ death contributed to the record number of deaths in ADOC last year, a total of 325.

What’s next for the grieving family?

Despite the lack of criminal charges, multiple civil lawsuits are on the horizon, adding to the dozens of cases the State of Alabama is currently defending over prison deaths, excessive force by staff, inadequate medical care, and unconstitutional conditions. 

Andrew Menefee, an attorney representing Mr. Williams’ father, told Appleseed he plans to file a civil suit on behalf of the father.  “Daniel Williams’ death was tragic but unfortunately representative of other prisoner deaths and civil rights violations that Alabama citizens routinely see occurring in the state prisons,” Mr. Menefee wrote in a statement. 

Mr. Williams’ death came at a time when Alabama prisons are being closely watched by the U.S. Department of Justice, which in December 2020 sued the state and ADOC, alleging that the state “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff,” according to the lawsuit. 

Tammy Williams, Daniel’s mother, told Appleseed that their hearts are broken in the wake of the brutal and preventable death of their son. 

“Daniel died from his injuries on the day he was set to be released from Staton. To those who mourn his loss with us: We thank you for the comfort and love you have shown us during these difficult times. To all others, we ask that you grant our family privacy pending the full outcome of this matter. We ask that you direct any and all inquiries to our attorney, Kirby Farris of Farris, Riley & Pitt,” Mrs. Williams said. 

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St. Clair Correctional Facility (photo by Bernard Troncale)

The lives of two young men, both 31, who died 23 days apart this year in separate Alabama prisons, were ended largely by the same drug, according to state medical examiners. 

Overdose deaths, and especially those deaths known or suspected of being caused by fentanyl, have soared in the state’s prisons. The overdose mortality rate in Alabama’s prisons last year of 435 per 100,000 people was 20 times the national rate across state prisons. 

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 in the minutes after his father last spoke to him by phone (photo courtesy of the family).

Tim Mathis knew his son, Chase, had a drug problem and had gotten into drug debt with other incarcerated men at Staton Correctional Facility, but when Chase realized his life was in danger and asked an officer for help, he was instead transferred to a dorm at Elmore Correctional Facility known for heavy drug activity, Mr. Mathis said. 

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 in the minutes after his father last spoke to him by phone, an ADOC investigator told Mr. Mathis. Instead of protecting his son, Mr. Mathis said the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) “threw him to the wolves.”  

What his son’s autopsy report shows is that the state’s medical examiner believes Chase died of accidental “mixed Drug toxicity (fentanyl and fluorofentanyl).” Fluorofentanyl is a synthetic form of fentanyl first produced in the 1960s. He was given two doses of Narcan, a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose, but it wasn’t effective, according to the autopsy report. 

“I know what he was doing. I know why he was in the prison, but he shouldn’t have died there,” Mr. Mathis said. He places the blame for his son’s overdose death squarely on the back of ADOC, which he said “needs to get off their asses and do something” about the rampant drug crisis across the state’s prisons. 

ADOC is desperate to increase its dismal staffing levels, but continues to bleed staff due to corruption, officer arrests, and turnover. Recent hiring efforts have produced applicants unable to pass the drug screens and fitness tests, and who have gang affiliations who have been weeded out, reducing the numbers of new recruits. This week, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm revealed that the 4,000-bed mega prison under construction in Elmore County will have a final cost, including furnishing and move-in costs, of $1.25 billion, the most expensive prison ever built in the United States. The ADOC has produced no plan as to how this prison will be staffed; neither did the agency submit a 2025 budget at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee hearing this week.

The loss of life continues, claiming sons, brothers, husbands

Wesley Abernathy, 31, died on Mother’s Day inside Bullock Correctional Facility. The ADOC investigator assigned to his death told his wife, Amber Abernathy, by phone last week that the toxicology report shows it was a lethal dose of fentanyl that killed her husband. That report isn’t yet public record, and awaits the local district attorney’s decision regarding any possible criminal charges before it can be released, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences wrote to Appleseed last week. 

Wesley and his wife, Amber Abernathy (photo courtesy of the family).

Mrs. Abernathy said she strongly believes her husband had no idea that what he may have taken before he died contained fentanyl. “He had been given it one time and was already scared of what it had done to him,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “They roll their own cigarettes, so they’re lacing these cigarettes with things.” She too blames ADOC for its failure in preventing the constant flow of drugs. 

“I don’t think that the guards are even watching when they should be, and you don’t know how many guards are bringing it in,” Mrs. Abernathy said. Mrs. Abernathy, who works as a social worker, asked why ADOC has not increased medical staff inside prisons as a result of the increasing numbers of overdose deaths. She warned other incarcerated people not to take substances from other incarcerated people or from officers, as they can’t be certain of what other drugs they might contain. 

Of those in ADOC custody, between 75 percent and 80 percent have substance use disorder, according to Appleseed’s report “A Bitter Pill.” Yet the drug treatment has plummeted across the prison system. In 2010, there were 5,242 incarcerated people in Alabama’s prisons who completed drug treatment, but by 2023 that number fell to 967. 

Alabama Appleseed asked ADOC whether Narcan, which cannot be abused, is made available to incarcerated people inside prison dorms. ADOC is working on a statement regarding the department’s use of Narcan, a spokeswoman told Appleseed. 

Alabama prisons saw a record 325 deaths in 2023. So far, ADOC investigations have determined that 112 of those deaths were from preventable causes, with 10 homicides, 13 suicides and 89 overdose deaths. The death rate in Alabama prisons has climbed to five times the national average. Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate is 1,370 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

ADOC has a serious problem hiring and retaining quality officers as well, leaving prisons woefully understaffed. Records requests show 366 staff were fired between 2018 to 2023. Of those, 134 were charged with work-related crimes, ranging from smuggling contraband to assault and murder. Commissioner Hamm acknowledged in this week’s legislative budget hearing that the department was not going to meet a court-ordered staffing increase of 2,000 more officers by January, 2025. 

While there have been arrests of both ADOC officers and civilians, charged with contraband-related crimes, in speaking with incarcerated people who witness the many drug deals inside Alabama prisons, those ADOC staff arrests are just the tip of the iceberg, and many more officers continue to smuggle drugs and other dangerous contraband for substantial payments.  

Prison officers arrested across the state

ADOC officer Monica Blakeney was arrested at Limestone Correctional Facility on July 31, charged with second-degree promoting prison contraband for allegedly bringing amphetamine/methamphetamine into the prison, according to news accounts. Blakeney was released from jail on a $5,000 bond. 

ADOC officer Annetta Smith was arrested August 1 and charged with promoting prison contraband and possession of marijuana. Smith is being held under a combined $30,000 bond for her two charges. Smith has since resigned from her position with the ADOC.

Court records state Smith on August 1 “smuggled three packages wrapped in black electrical tape into Staton Correctional Facility” which contained 273 grams of marijuana. She admitted to smuggling in the drugs under her clothing to sell to an incarcerated man, according to those records. 

Kilby Correctional Facility officer Tyree Lynette Hoyle, 46, was arrested March 24 and charged with use of position for personal gain and attempting to distribute drugs. Court records indicate Hoyle met ADOC officer, Ebony Chillous, at the Montgomery Zoo and received three packages containing suboxone, marijuana and a cell phone. Chillous is also charged with attempting to distribute drugs and using her office for personal gain. 

Charging documents state Hoyle on November 30, 2023, conspired with a state prison inmate and Chillous to deliver drugs inside the prison. She received a $500 Cash App payment from an incarcerated man on November 9 and transferred the payment into her personal bank account, according to court records. 

Mario Grant, 32, an officer at Kilby Correctional Facility, was arrested February 26 and is charged with use of official position for personal gain and conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime after smuggling drugs into the prison. The charging documents do not state what drugs he is alleged to have brought into the prison. 

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Wesley Abernathy was set to be released in December 2025. He had been sentenced to 30 months in ADOC. He died at Bullock Correctional Facility on Mother’s Day this May (photo courtesy of the family),

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Like many Alabama families, Wesley Abernathy’s mother, wife, and sister paid thousands of dollars in extortion payments hoping the money would keep him alive during his short sentence in an Alabama prison. “We have gotten threats from other inmates in there. I was suckered into paying money,” his sister, Darby Martinez explained. “One time he was on the phone with me, and somebody got on there and said, ‘if you don’t send me this money, I’ll kill him tonight.’” 

The family paid dearly. But Wesley died anyway.

“I had to tell my mom. It was horrific. I think that’s the worst pain that I’ve ever been through,” Mrs. Martinez told Appleseed. Wesley, 31, was her mother’s only son. He died at Bullock Correctional Facility on Mother’s Day this May.

Mrs. Martinez talked to her brother by phone the night before he died. They talked for eight minutes, until 10:58 p.m.  “I’ll call you on Mother’s Day. Tell mom and everybody to answer,” Wesley told his sister. Instead, Mrs. Martinez got a call from a prison employee at 6:58 a.m. 

“Let me switch you over to the chaplain,” the man told her. “I knew instantly something was wrong. He couldn’t get the chaplain to answer so he told me ‘I’m very sorry but Wesley passed away.’ I don’t really remember much from that moment. I know they said that I just fell to the ground and was screaming,” Mrs. Martinez said. 

Wesley Abernathy with his sister, Selena Colon, his mother, Aleshia Gonzalez, and his sister, Darby Martinez (photo courtesy of the family),

Wesley was set to be released in December 2025. He had been sentenced to 30 months in ADOC, followed by probation, after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

From January 1st through June 20th  there were 161 deaths among the incarcerated in Alabama prisons, Appleseed learned through a records request. Alabama prisons saw a record 325 deaths in 2023.  So far, ADOC investigations have determined that 112 of those deaths were from preventable causes, with 10 homicides, 13 suicides and 89 overdose deaths. 

Alabama’s overdose mortality rate in prisons last year of 435 per 100,000 was 20 times the national rate across state prisons, according to the latest available national data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. 

Ms. Martinez estimates that during her brother’s time in prison she sent $3,000 to men who’d threatened his life. Between her, her mother and Wesley’s wife, she estimates they sent between $5,000 and $7,000 to extortionists who threatened to kill him. 

“Because I was scared for his life, and even with us telling the prison, ‘Hey, there’s drugs in there. It’s not as safe there. They were like ‘Oh, well, he’s probably gonna die.’ This is literally what the woman told me on the phone,” Mrs. Martinez said of a female officer she spoke to. “She said, we’ve moved him four times already, and I said, no you have not. You moved him from one dorm to the next. You didn’t try to do anything.” 

Mrs. Martinez said the Law Enforcement Services Division investigator looking into her brother’s death told the family that ADOC told him not to worry about an autopsy because they believed it was an overdose death, but the condition of his body at the funeral home told another story.

The side of Wesley’s face was black, and he had a large knot on his head. “So we started asking. How did this happen?,” Mrs. Martinez said. 

The investigator told the family that he fought for an autopsy to be done because Wesley had bruises on his face, but that according to the funeral home there were no signs that an autopsy had been done. 

“We had my brother cremated, so there’s no going back. They just ripped that away from us. We thought an autopsy was performed because the investigator didn’t even know the autopsy wasn’t even done,” Mrs. Martinez said. 

Wesley had an addiction problem and may have been using drugs while incarcerated, Mrs. Martinez said. She believes he was in debt to those men inside who were selling him drugs. Drug debt is a common catalyst for violence and death inside Alabama prisons. 

One incarcerated man who was extorting the family told Mrs. Martinez on a prison phone about a month before her brother died that, “We run this prison. The officers do what we say, so they’re not going to protect your brother.” Like so many Alabama families with incarcerated loved ones, Wesley Abernathy’s family did not know who to turn to, or how to create safer conditions for him. There is no guidebook for desperate families and generally no one with any power to help them. “There are people that deserve to be in there. I understand that, but it’s to teach people. Not for all these families that have to get phone calls that their family member is gone.” 

Wesley and his wife, Amber Abernathy (photo courtesy of the family).

Mrs. Martinez described her brother as a good-hearted person who loved to fish, and could most often be found fishing at Guntersville Lake. “He was a good man. He had three babies, and he loved them to death, with everything in him,” Mrs. Martinez said. 

Amber Abernathy, Wesley’s widow, told Appleseed she received a call from the prison warden the morning he died, but that the shock of finding out had her in disbelief. 

“I was just saying, Is this a joke? Are you just kidding? This is not funny. I just was in panic,” Mrs. Abernathy said. The warden told her there was no bruising on the body and that it appeared to have been a medical event. 

Mrs. Abernathy described what the family saw when they arrived at the funeral home. 

“He had lots of bruising on his face – on the right side of his face. He had a knot on the right side of his head, and markings behind his ear and on his right side,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “We were not prepared for that.” 

The Law Enforcement Services Division investigator assigned to her husband’s death told her in an early phone call that they believed he died of a fentanyl overdose, she said, and that there were no bruises or other signs of injury on him. She said that although she suspected he was using drugs in prison he’d never take fentanyl purposefully, and that he had always been afraid of that drug. The investigator told her his body would be set for an autopsy, but that’s not what happened, she explained. 

Mrs. Abernathy said the investigator told her Wesley could be seen on security footage at around 3:30 am the day he died doubled over in pain, before going to the bathroom where he remained doubled over as if his stomach was hurting. He then returned to his bunk. A man who slept nearby Wesley later told the investigator that when Wesley returned from the bathroom he told the man he believes he may have ingested fentanyl. She said the family knows he bought a cigarette from someone the night before and they’re worried that it may have been laced with a drug. 

In another call with the investigator about three weeks after the funeral he told Mrs. Abernathy that he had seen those bruises and had requested an autopsy, Mrs. Abernathy said, but when she explained to the investigator that the funeral home told the family they saw no signs of an autopsy having been done, the news caught the investigator off guard. 

Wesley and his daughter, Paizlee Abernathy (photo courtesy of the family).

“That doesn’t make sense, because I specifically requested for a full autopsy on him. They had his body at forensic sciences, so I don’t understand why they didn’t do an autopsy,” Mrs. Abernathy said the investigator told her, referring to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences (ADFS), which can conduct full autopsies and drug toxicology screens on incarcerated people. 

Mrs. Abernathy requested the report on her husband’s death from the ADFS but in a letter to her on June 20th, and in an identical letter on July 19th, the department said the reports in that case weren’t yet public records because the death was either still under investigation by the local district attorney, or because the department hadn’t yet finalized the reports. 

ADOC declined to directly answer Appleseed’s questions regarding the statement the investigator made about his concerns over the signs of injuries and his request for a full autopsy. 

“The death of inmate Abernathy is still under investigation by the Law Enforcement Services Division. The ADOC does not have the authority to authorize autopsies. Any questions regarding autopsies should be directed to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences,” the ADOC spokesperson wrote to Appleseed. 

ADFS in a response to Appleseed also didn’t answer whether Wesley received a full autopsy or just a toxicology screening, and instead sent a letter identical to those sent to Mrs. Abernathy. 

ADOC first confirmed for Appleseed that autopsies would no longer be done by the state for suspected natural or overdose deaths. UAB Hospital terminated its longstanding agreement with ADOC to conduct autopsies and/or toxicology screens on suspected natural and overdose deaths on April 22, 2024, ADOC told Appleseed. Families recently filed a lawsuit against UAB after discovering that their incarcerated loved ones’ bodies were returned to them for interment missing internal organs. 

The post Less than one year into a short prison sentence, Wesley Abernathy is gone. He was only 31. appeared first on Alabama Appleseed.

Deandre Roney died June 9, 2024. He was one of four men at Donaldson prison who died over a three-day period in June (photo courtesy of his family).

Deandre Roney knew his life was in danger, so he asked officers at Donaldson Correctional Facility to move him, as did his family. A man had been chasing him with a knife for days, and had already stabbed him once, the blade breaking off inside of him, his family told Appleseed. 

Corrections staff assured the family that they would move Deandre to safety. He wasn’t. Instead, Deandre was stabbed in his back and in his head by a makeshift knife the following day. He died June 9 at UAB Hospital. Mr. Roney was scheduled to be released on Nov. 6, according to court records. 

Deandre was one of four men at Donaldson prison who died over a three-day period in June. One man died while in hospice care at the prison, and two others were found unresponsive and later died. 

“Friday night my brother called and asked if he could have someone come and get him out of that dorm, because he didn’t feel safe. He wanted to rest,” said Chante Roney, Deandre’s sister. Deandre’s mother called and spoke to an officer who told her he’d get her son moved, Ms. Roney said. 

“Saturday morning my brother called and asked if we contacted anyone there, because no one ever came,” Ms. Roney said. Within a few hours of that phone call her brother was stabbed.

The day of the stabbing the family got a call from another incarcerated man telling them they needed to call the prison and that something had happened to Deandre. They called and spoke to a lieutenant whom they said was “very rude” and said they’d have to call back on Monday,  Ms. Roney said. Later Saturday evening the prison’s warden called the family and confirmed that he was injured, but did not tell the family the serious extent of his injuries. 

“He said he was at UAB and he was stable, and for us to go over there and see him. He’s ready to be seen. Just prepare for the worst,” Ms. Roney said the warden told them. “But we were thinking maybe he was just injured real bad, not knowing he was already dead. They really just had him set up so we can come and view his body.” 

No correctional officers present

In the days after his death the family received calls from men in Donaldson prison who knew Deandre and what happened to him. Those men told the family that Deandre was looking for help that Saturday, but there were no officers in his dorm. Deandre walked toward the prison’s faith dorm where officers could usually be found, Ms. Roney said, but he never made it to safety. “This guy snuck behind him and killed him and left him outside,” Ms. Roney said.

Deandre Roney (photo courtesy of his family)

People who are nearing release can often become targets of violence in Alabama’s deadly prisons, where staffing is woefully under court-ordered staffing levels, and prisons are overpopulated and filled with drugs and weapons. Donaldson prison was at 150 percent capacity in April, the last month for which the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) has released a monthly statistical report. 

“He was reaching out, uneasy. He didn’t feel safe. He felt like something was going to happen before he made it home by November, and they failed him. They really failed him,” Ms. Roney said. 

The man who the family was told by others inside Donaldson prison killed Deandre is serving 30 years after pleading guilty to attempted murder and assault in the first degree in 2011. ADOC declined to say whether anyone has been charged with Deandre’s killing, and court records don’t indicate the man the family believes killed him has been charged in connection with the death. 

“There are no further updates to share at this point. The LESD investigation is active and ongoing,” an ADOC spokeswoman responded to Appleseed, referring to ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division. 

“We were saving money up for him to come home, to buy him clothes, because he’s been gone all these years,” Ms. Roney said. “He was coming home the first week of November, His birthday was at the end of November, and he didn’t even make it.” Instead of using that money to help her brother make a  life outside of prison, the family used it to bury him. 

150 days left to serve

Deandre’s handwritten motion for reinstatement of his probation, which goes into detail about telling his probation officer that he lost his job and was unable to pay his fines and fees.

Deandre pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and attempted murder in 2002 and 2003 respectively, and was sentenced to 20-years split sentence, to serve three years with five years of probation following his release. He was 16-years old at the time of the robbery, court records show. He remained in state custody until July 2007, but his probation was revoked by then-Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Gloria Bahakel in November 2008 after he missed one check-in with his probation officer and failed to pay his court-ordered fines and fees that month, court records show. He was remanded back to prison to serve out that original 20-year sentence. Deandre was 150 days shy of completing his sentence when he was killed. 

Ms. Roney plans to speak at an upcoming public hearing of the Joint Legislative Prison Oversight Committee meeting on July 24th. “I would love to speak on my brother’s behalf,” she told Appleseed. She won’t be alone that day in Montgomery. Tim Mathis, who’s son, Chase Mathis, died moments after he spoke to him by phone in Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4th, also plans to speak to those lawmakers. 

Ms. Roney wonders how long her brother remained there on that ground outside before other incarcerated men, not officers, came to his aide. 

“Inmates had to go out there and get my brother off of the ground and get him to the infirmary. He didn’t have a chance,” Ms. Roney said. 

The post In an overcrowded prison dorm with no correctional officers present, a beloved brother and son is killed, one of four deaths at Donaldson prison in three days. appeared first on Alabama Appleseed.

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4, 2024. His grieving family is seeking answers (photo courtesy of his family).

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 moments after his father last spoke to him by phone. Now the father is seeking answers, and wants to expose Alabama’s troubled prisons that failed to keep his son, who entered prison in a wheelchair, alive.

Before prescription pills took their toll, Chase was a farm boy and a prankster, affectionately called Plowboy in his community. “He’s been climbing on tractors since he was big enough to ride a bicycle to the fields…He could pretty much run anything. If he could reach the controls he could run it,” Tim Mathis said. His son grew up in a small rural community between Dothan and Cottonwood. “He loved to shoot fireworks. He loved to hunt. Just normal country stuff.”

Chase Mathis loved making friends and family laugh (photo courtesy of Chase’s family)

Chase went to great lengths to make people laugh, his father remembered. During a friend’s birthday party at a local fast food restaurant, Chase dressed in full clown costume, makeup and all, just to make people smile. 

His son’s life took a turn when he became addicted to prescription pain pills, Mr. Mathis said, but it was a 2014 car accident that sent him to prison. Chase was driving with a friend and was intoxicated when they believe he fell asleep at the wheel. The car struck a tree, killing his friend. Chase suffered multiple broken bones throughout his body, three skull fractures, a torn spleen and an aneurysm. “We stayed in the trauma unit for 41 days before we knew he was going to live,” Mr. Mathis said.  A year-and-a-half later Chase was indicted for murder, but Chase later agreed to a plea deal and a reduced charge of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 15 years. 

Chase’s attorney asked that he be put into the Alabama Department of Corrections’ Substance Abuse Program (SAP), Mr. Mathis said, but he never received that critical treatment once incarcerated. “Ain’t none of that happening,” Mr. Mathis said of the SAP program. “It’s just a crock…If we had known that at the time, if I could go back and do it again I’d say, take your damned chances, go to trial and see what the jury says.” 

ADOC’s own data confirm that there has been a 64% decrease in the number of incarcerated people completing drug treatment over the last decade. Staffing is threadbare at the troubled agency, which constricts the availability of rehabiliative programming. Magnifying Chase’s challenges in prison was the fact that he relied on a wheelchair. He called his father one day in tears, and said he was hungry. “I can’t walk,” Chase told his father, and his dorm is too far from the dining hall. By the time he wheels himself there it’s too late, and the food is being put up, he said. If he buys food from the prison store he has to eat it as soon as he buys it, or else he’ll be robbed of the food, and the officers do nothing to stop it, Chase told his father. 

Mr. Mathis called then-ADOC Commissioner Jeff Dunn to discuss his concerns but Dunn declined to talk to him, so Mr. Mathis said he’d like to visit the prison and talk to him in person. 

“And I was advised that if I set foot on the property up there I’d be charged with a terroristic threat,” Mr. Mathis said. 

“There was no medical rehab whatsoever. He had to teach himself how to walk,” Mr. Mathis said. His son began using drugs in prison, he believes, to get his mind off of the brutal violence and unchecked depravity surrounding him inside daily. 

Mr. Mathis spoke to his son the day he died. Their call ended at 8:32 p.m. on June 4th. He received a call from the prison at 10 p.m. with the news of Chase’s death. An investigator with ADOC’s Law Enforcement Services Division told Mr. Mathis that he believes Chase died within 15 minutes of talking to Mr. Mathis.

Chase Mathis (photo courtesy of the family).

Mr. Mathis said it’s hard to know for certain, but he’s concerned his son may have been killed with what’s known as a “hotshot,” or a lethal dose of drugs administered against one’s will and meant to kill. 

“Chase told me he owed these guys money. He didn’t tell me who they were, but he told the investigator. He gave them their names,” Mr. Mathis said. Chase owed more than $1,000 in separate amounts to three men at Staton prison, he said. He assumed it was drug debt, which is common in Alabama prisons and often results in the extortion of family members, assaults and homicides. Because of that debt and threats he was receiving, Chase told investigators and asked to be moved, his father said, but instead of placing him in a cell by himself for protection, his son was placed in general population. Chase’s deaths just moments after arriving at Elmore prison is suspicious, he explained. 

Chase’s body was sent to the state’s lab at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for an autopsy, Mr. Mathis said. He was told by ADOC that the autopsy would be done because the death was under criminal investigation. 

ADOC first confirmed for Appleseed that autopsies would no longer be done by the state for suspected natural or overdose deaths. UAB Hospital terminated its longstanding agreement with ADOC to conduct autopsies and/or toxicology screens on suspected natural and overdose deaths on April 22, 2024, ADOC told Appleseed. Families recently filed a lawsuit against UAB after discovering that their incarcerated loved ones’ bodies were returned to them for interment missing internal organs. 

Mr. Mathis has signed up to speak at the upcoming public hearing during the Joint Legislative Prison Oversight Committee meeting on July 24th. He’s still not sure what he’ll say, but knows he wants to talk about the drug crisis in Alabama’s prisons. 

Mr. Mathis said he’d like to see a nationwide news agency come in and expose the crisis in Alabama’s prisons. “So the average person out here can see, because if we had a dog pound that was run like the facility my child’s been at, they’d be pitching a fit,” he said. 

National coverage of Alabama’s horrific prisons has been widespread at least since 2019, and sadly the humanitarian crisis persists. Reports have appeared in USA Today, The New York Times, CNN, Politico, Fox News and more.

Families with incarcerated loved ones attend the Prison Oversight Committee hearing in December 14, 2023 (photo courtesy of Alabama Daily News).

Reaction from lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Prison Oversight Committee after hearing from family members of incarcerated people at a previous public hearing in December 2023 resulted in passage of SB322 this past legislative session, which creates a family services unit to provide answers and information to families of incarcerated people who have been injured or hospitalized. 

Alabama’s overcrowded, understaffed and deadly prisons have been in a state of crisis for decades, yet with each week the crisis only gets worse. Appleseed regularly talks to family members who have lost loved ones inside prisons, or who are being threatened with violence or death, and family members extorted to keep them safe, and it’s not just Appleseed staff who are having these conversations. 

“I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve gotten another call from another constituent where their son was beat up because the gangs are running our prisons, and the prison guards are bringing the drugs and the cell phones to the gang members,” Alabama House Speaker Pro Tem Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, said during a Legislative Contract Review Committee’s meeting in June. “I mean, these people call me and they’re crying their eyes out because they’ve got a video tape of their son that’s just been (sexually assaulted) or beaten up by the gangs. I feel sorry for you all, but please God, we’ve got to do something to protect these prisoners. It’s insane what’s going on in our prison system.”

The post Another death in an Alabama prison, another grieving family appeared first on Alabama Appleseed.

It was five years ago today that the U.S. Department of Justice released a report detailing violations of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment for incarcerated men in Alabama prisons, and since then more than 1,000 people have died in state prison custody. 

The Alabama Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee meets today and is tasked with providing critical oversight of a department that for decades has been steeped in mismanagement, chaos, corruption, and violence. 

The DOJ issued a second report in July 2020 detailing widespread use of excessive force, including deadly force, by corrections officers against incarcerated people, and in December 2020 the DOJ sued the state and the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC). The trial, which will be closely watched across the nation, is set for November, but could be pushed back.

Throughout the last five years, state officials have provided major pay increases to prison guards, increased the ADOC’s budget by 48%, and signed a medical care contract for $1 billion. ADOC officers confiscate hundreds of weapons, even guns, along with enormous amounts of drugs on a regular basis. But nothing seems to stop the carnage. Alabama prisons have a death rate five times the national average, and 2023 saw record loss of life, with 325 incarcerated people dying in state prisons.   

Low prison staffing levels were flagged in that first DOJ report as being a catalyst of the violence, yet from December 2017 until Sept. 30, 2020, the state showed an increase of just 25 officers over nearly two years, which was less than 1.5 percent of a judge’s order to add 2,000 correctional officers by February 2022, and the staffing problem has only worsened. ADOC’s quarterly reports show total security staffing fell from 2,102 in December 2021 to 1,763 by September 2023, even after massive recruiting efforts, pay raises and incentives.

And many officers are part of the problem. Between 2018 and the end of 2023, ADOC fired 366 Corrections staff, and more quit before being terminated. During those years 134 ADOC officers and staff were charged with work-related crimes, Appleseed discovered through a records request, with charges ranging from promoting prison contraband to murder. 

In a recent case, ADOC Sgt. Demarcus Sanders in July 2023 was charged with murder in the death of Rubyn James Murray, 38, beaten to death at the hands of two other incarcerated men, directed to do so by Sanders, court records allege. Those two incarcerated men are also charged with murder. “The defendant confessed to the offense,” an ADOC investigator wrote of Sanders in a deposition. 

One of the last men to die in Alabama prisons was 39-year-old Samuel Ward, who was stabbed to death on March 27 by another incarcerated man at Limestone Correctional Facility. It was the fifth homicide at that prison since May 2021, and the second during the month of March. 

Gov Kay Ivey and supporters of her plan to build new prisons have said those buildings are the answer to Alabama’s deadly prison crisis, and while lawmakers have secured the money to build the first $1.08 billion prison – in part with $400 in federal COVID-relief funds, and potentially $100 million from state education funds, money for a second planned prison hasn’t been found. 

Immediately, after the 2019 report was released, Ivey began promising an “Alabama solution” to the problem. “Over the coming months, my Administration will be working closely with DOJ to ensure that our mutual concerns are addressed and that we remain steadfast in our commitment to public safety, making certain that this Alabama problem has an Alabama solution,” Ivey said at the time.

Asked what the most significant accomplishments to address the prison crisis to date have been, and about the lack of funding for the second planned prison, Gov. Kay Ivey’s office declined to provide a response, and instead sent portions of Ivey’s most recent state of the state speech. 

“The Alabama Department of Corrections certainly remains a key focus of our state’s public safety efforts. I will be frank: Running a corrections system is a hard job, and I know everyone has an opinion on how they can do it better. There is no one more capable to lead that effort here in Alabama than Commissioner John Hamm,” Ivey said in her February speech. 

“Prisons around the country and on every level – federal, state and local – are experiencing challenges. But we remain committed to doing everything in our power to make improvements where we can in our state system.

“We are moving forward in our mission to build two new facilities. At the same time, we are working to stop contraband coming into our existing facilities, and we are doubling down on our staff recruitment efforts and seeing record graduating classes of officers because of it,” Ivey’s speech reads. 

New buildings alone won’t solve the culture of violence and death inside Alabama’s prisons, which is exactly what the Department of Justice told the state in the 2019 report: “While new facilities might cure some of these physical plant issues, it is important to note that new facilities alone will not resolve the contributing factors to the overall unconstitutional condition of ADOC prisons, such as understaffing, culture, management deficiencies, corruption, policies, training, non-existent investigations, violence, illicit drugs, and sexual abuse.”

While no ADOC official attended the Legislature’s Joint Prison Oversight Committee meeting in December, family members of those who’ve died in state custody did, and spoke of the brutal ways in which their loved ones’ lives ended. 

“When you see your dad for the first time in 10 years and half of his face is almost gone because he was beaten, it does something to you,”17-year-old MaKayla Mount told lawmakers at that December meeting carrying her father’s urn with her in the State House that day. Christopher Mount was beaten and strangled to death inside a protective custody cell at Easterling Correctional Facility on Mother Day 2023. 

“My son was raped in February of this year and it took them over a month to get him moved,” one mother told the lawmakers at that meeting. 

Appleseed’s Executive Director, Carla Crowder, described for lawmakers at that December meeting how ADOC repeatedly failed to hold accountable the 38-year-old suspect in the kidnapping, rape and torture of 22-year-old Daniel Williams, who died at a hospital on Nov. 9. The suspect was involved in nine instances of sex assault, rape, and stabbing since 2017 in ADOC while incarcerated, yet there is no documentation that the department disciplined the man or placed him in segregation. 

“His classification summary showed a five-year clear record of institutional violence, which resulted in a perfect score of zero in risk assessment conducted in October, and a total score low enough for him to be placed in medium security in an open bay dorm. The psych associates signed off on this and the warden signed off on this,” Crowder said at the meeting. 

These kinds of attacks are precisely what DOJ identified five years ago: “The combination of ADOC’s overcrowding and understaffing results in prisons that are inadequately supervised, with inappropriate and unsafe housing designations, creating an environment rife with violence, extortion, drugs, and weapons. Prisoner-on-prisoner homicide and sexual abuse are common. Prisoners who are seriously injured or stabbed must find their way to security staff elsewhere in the facility or bang on the door of the dormitory to gain the attention of correctional officers. Prisoners have been tied up for days by other prisoners while unnoticed by security staff.” 

The report was signed by since-retired U.S. Attorneys Louis Franklin Sr., Jay Town and Richard Moore, all Trump appointees. 

Alabama prisons in January were at 168 percent capacity, and held 20,469 people in combined prisons designed for 12,115. In the five years since, the state’s prison population has remained the same. At the time of the release of the DOJ’s 2019 report, Alabama prisons held just one less incarcerated person than were being housed in January, 2024.

The post Five Years Ago, the United States Department of Justice Declared Alabama Prisons Unconstitutional, Unsafe, and Harmful. They Still Are. appeared first on Alabama Appleseed.