Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press

Many U.S. jails release surveillance video, almost routinely, to shed light on a prisoner's death. Not in Texas, where county sheriffs use – more accurately, misuse – a sweeping exemption to state open-records law. It allows them to withhold practically any video that local officials can, somehow, tie to terrorism.

With more than 100 deaths a year in Texas' county jails, state legislators  ought to ask themselves where the real threat to public safety lies. They should amend the state's open-records law to remove this ridiculously broad exemption, part of the state's Homeland Security Act. 

Revising a small part of the state's public-information statute is the only way to stop local governments from twisting the law to conceal video that in no way compromises public safety.

As it stands, the Texas Attorney General's Office, in ruling on open-records requests for video, has little choice but to uphold the law and rule against the public whenever local governments cite the exemption for terrorism-related security systems.

Section 418.182 of Texas code empowers local governments to withhold video that “relates to the specifications, operating procedures, or location of a security system used to protect public or private property from an act of terrorism.”

In truth, sheriffs could argue their entire jails could, potentially, protect property from terrorism. Hazy language in this section of Texas open-records law amounts to a virtual blank check for sheriffs to withhold jail video from the public. In a democracy, the burden rightly rests with government to show, directly, why the release of information poses a significant risk.

Cases-in-point

Jailhouse video can supply invaluable information, as the highly publicized investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's Aug. 10 death demonstrated. Surveillance video from the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York shows guards never made some of the checks on Epstein, 66, that were noted in the log, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

Across the country, falsifying jail observation logs is one of the easiest and most widely used ways to cover negligence, incompetence, and misconduct. That's one reason the Herald-Press has filed more than a dozen open-records requests, with four local and state agencies, for video related to the June 15, 2018, death of Anderson County prisoner Rhonda Newsome.

The sheriff's office denied the newspaper's initial request on Aug. 23 of last year. In a jaw-dropping response to the Herald-Press, the office stated the tape had "already been recorded over.” Ten months later, responding to another request, the sheriff's office cited security reasons for withholding the video.

A week ago, the Texas Attorney General's Office ruled the terrorism exemption gave Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor the right to withhold surveillance video related to Newsome's death. Enough said about the law's treacherous duplicity

 Newsome, 50, died in a holding cell, nearly seven hours after the Palestine Regional Medical Center alerted the jail nurse of her blood test results. The test indicated she could die without immediate medical attention.

A recently completed investigation by the Texas Rangers also found Anderson County Jail staff attempted to use a malfunctioning defibrillator on Newsome, after she became unresponsive at about 5 p.m.

The Texas Rangers' report indicates Anderson County jailers logged checks on Newsome at the required 15-minute intervals, but time-stamped video is the only way to prove that.

 No security breaches

Withholding jailhouse video is not the national norm. 

Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp, of Toledo, Ohio, said Ohio sheriffs, without fuss, release jail video after a prisoner dies. In an interview Thursday, he cited a death five years ago in the Lucas County Jail. Surveillance video showed one of his jailers had falsified logs and not made required checks on the prisoner.

Jailhouse video frequently goes viral on the Internet, including footage related to Sandra Bland's high-profile 2015 death in the Waller County Jail, and the traffic stop that preceded it.  

Nothing in those videos could reasonably be construed as a security threat.

Jail surveillance video typically shows a cell's exterior. Occasionally, jailers can be seen walking by. Because the camera records close to the cell, it does not reveal the cell's location within the jail.

That said, if a particular video really undermines public safety, sheriffs could  make the case, under current Texas law, for withholding it, without resorting to a sweeping exemption that allows them to conceal nearly every video they don't want the public to see.

Tharp, a lifelong law enforcement officer and decorated Vietnam War combat veteran, was surprised to learn Texas sheriffs typically do not release jail video surveillance.

“How do they get away with that?” Tharp asked a Herald-Press editor he has known for five years.

That's a question only the Texas Legislature can answer.

Soiled by vomit and diarrhea, Anderson County prisoner Rhonda Newsome died alone in a holding cell last year, three months after she was jailed on assault charges stemming from a family fight.

Like most prisoners in Texas county jails, Newsome, 50, was a pre-trial detainee, convicted of nothing. Still, her arrest became a virtual death sentence after jail medical staff failed to get her treatment, even after they knew she faced imminent death.

Newsome's horrific and needless demise on June 15, 2018 – the jail's second death in 14 months – will likely become an expensive lesson for Anderson County taxpayers. 

For more than 40 years, federal courts have ruled withholding adequate health care for prisoners, whether in county jails, state prisons, or federal penitentiaries, violates the U.S. Constitution.

Unlike other people, prisoners must rely entirely on their keepers for emergency care. Not providing it, therefore, invites onerous civil suits – additional costs to taxpayers that local and state officials could avoid by operating within the law.

Last week, Newsome's family filed suit in Eastern District Court, asking for $10 million in damages, including punitive damages, for depriving Newsome of life and liberty without due process, a violation of the Fifth and 14th Amendments.

Palestine attorneys Charles Nichols, Dan Scarborough, and Donald Larkin represent Newsome's family. For Anderson County, just contracting for outside counsel to fight this wrongful death suit will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A similar civil suit in 2015 in the death of Waller County prisoner Sandra Bland resulted in a $1.9-million settlement for Bland's family, as well as numerous reforms under the Sandra Bland Act of 2017.

Buttressed by a recently completed investigation by the Texas Rangers, the case for deliberate indifference in Newsome's death appears overwhelming.

For up to five days, jail staff ignored pleas from Newsome for hospital care, as she continued to vomit blood, several former prisoners told the Herald-Press shortly after Newsome died. Newsome suffered from Addison's disease and had a history of mental illness.

On the day Newsome died, Palestine Regional Medical Center alerted jail nurse Timothy Green at 10:39 a.m. that Newsome's blood tests indicated an imminent danger of death, without immediate medical treatment. Nearly seven hours later, Newsome still lay dying in the jail.

After Newsome became unresponsive at about 5 p.m., jail staff attempted to use a defibrillator on Newsome that didn't work, reported a Texas Rangers investigator.

Without hyperbole, the suit against Taylor, Green, Dr. Adam Corley, and county medical provider TAKET Holdings cites a “culture of negligence” and a systemic lack of medical care, including the illegal dispensing of controlled substances to prisoners by jail staff.

TAKET lacked a consistent protocol for dispensing drugs. Newsome was “essentially tortured by improper and over-medication,” the suit states. Her autopsy showed traces of 13 controlled substances, including opioids, that were not prescribed by a doctor.

Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor has fought, tooth and nail, to conceal records, documents, and surveillance video pertaining to Newsome's death – even denying Newsome's son her jail medical records.

A federal wrongful death lawsuit is nothing to cheer. Money won't bring back a loved one; taxpayers foot the bill for the incompetence, indifference, and neglect of their public servants.

Litigation, however, represents one of the few levers of accountability for Texas' 250 county jails, and perhaps their only catalyst for change. Operating without independent oversight, Texas jails report roughly 100 prisoner deaths a year – more than 10 percent of the nation's total.

This year, jail deaths in Texas are headed for a record number.

Anderson County taxpayers can only hope the specter of a multi-million-dollar judgment will finally get the attention of their county commissioners. Renewing TAKET's no-bid, $210,000 annual contract for jail medical services would be, at best, reckless and irresponsible.

With TAKET in control, Anderson County residents can expect more medical and mental health care that defies the law, belies community standards of decency, and threatens taxpayers with costly litigation.

That's a lesson they can ill afford.

Before dying of a methamphetamine overdose early on Aug. 1, 2017, La Salle County prisoner James Dean Davis, aka “Country,” moaned and yelled for most of the night. Sweat dripped off him in a chilly holding cell, as vomit ran red, like Kool-Aid, on the floor. 

“He kept saying he needed help and didn't want to die,” Davis' cellmate later told a Texas Rangers investigator.

But jailers ignored Davis, surmising he was withdrawing from meth, after his arrest the day before on a theft warrant. One jailer even mimicked and mocked the wailing coming from Davis' cell.

"It's freaking annoying," he said, as another jailer laughed. "Like, shut up!"

Later that day, another La Salle County jailer falsified observation log entries, failing to check on Davis, 42, at prescribed 30-minute intervals.

The jailer's excuse was that all of the staff falsify logs. Her sergeant even told her to do it, she said, if she couldn't make her rounds on time.  

An autopsy ruled Davis' death "accidental, but like most of Texas' annual 100-plus in-custody deaths, it stemmed from a lethal mix of negligence, incompetence, and indifference.

Neglect in custody

Davis' death was one of nearly 200 in-custody deaths statewide in 2017 and 2018 that were investigated by the Texas Rangers. Twenty-five reports on those investigations, obtained through the Freedom-of-Information Act, were randomly selected and reviewed by the Herald-Press this month. This year's deaths remain under investigation.

The reports showed at least 15 of the 25 deaths in Texas county jails -- more than half -- involved neglect and misconduct, including the 2018 death of Anderson County prisoner Rhonda Newsome, 50, of Palestine.

The real figure, however is almost certainly higher. Another eight of the 25 reports, almost one-third, provided too little information to determine the role negligence played in the death.

Falsified observation logs, the most common failure found in the Herald-Press review, were cited in nearly half of the investigations. Dying prisoners weren't checked or observed for hours. In one death, Texas Rangers found 21 discrepancies between observation logs and digital video camera records.

Equally troubling, the Texas Rangers and Texas Commission on Jail Standards, rarely held jailers accountable, even though falsifying observation logs is a felony. 

The reports by the Texas Rangers also uncovered excessive force, inadequate monitoring, ignored calls for help, delays in medical attention, and failure to recognize and treat mental illness and suicide risks.

Suicides accounted for seven, or nearly a third, of the 25 deaths – near the statewide average. Victims ranged in age from 17 to 67. Five of them, or 20 percent, were women, a little higher than the state average. 

Excessive force contributed to one death: In 2017, Kelli Leanne Page, 46, died of asphyxiation while jailers restrained her. Two Coryell County jailers held Page, face down, while applying force to her upper back and buttocks, until Page became unresponsive. One jailer hit her head with his fist.

Practically all of the victims were pre-trial detainees, without convictions, who could not make bail. Their charges were mostly minor, such as criminal trespass, petty theft, public intoxication, or drug possession. These allegations became, in effect, death sentences.

On March 17, 2017, for example, police arrested Mary Ann Flanagan, 47, of Harrison County, for stealing underwear from a local Walmart. The next day, she hanged herself in a holding cell with a grey blanket knotted around her neck. 

Flanagan's husband filed a $2-million wrongful death lawsuit last year, alleging deputies failed to check on Flanagan.

In Tyler County, on Nov. 13, 2017, prisoner Amie Coon, 41, hanged herself with a television cable. The day before, local police arrested Coon for drug possession.

During intake, Coon told a magistrate she would kill herself; the magistrate's report said Coon was just blowing off steam. 

Mentally ill and suicidal patients rarely got the help they needed, investigations by Texas Rangers show. 

Eric Taylor, 24, is a tragic case-in-point. Despite a severe mental illness, Taylor was locked down 24 hours a day, without physical contact, in the Travis County Jail.

On March 31, 2018, the day he died, Taylor lapped up water from the toilet and spat it out. He stared at the ceiling, walking in circles with his tongue out.

Taylor told a jailer his psychotropic medications were triggering bad side effects, but jailers dismissed his behavior as a stunt to get their attention. They didn't know a jail nurse had given Taylor the wrong medications earlier that day.

Taylor died at about 5:20 p.m. “Natural causes,” the autopsy concluded.

The sordid deaths of these prisoners were not news. Their lives, and the mistakes and blunders that ended them, were quickly forgotten.

A tough job

With 57 deaths in the first half of 2019, Texas is on track for a record 114 in-custody deaths this year, a 16 percent increase from 98 last year.

Commendable mental health jail reforms under the Sandra Bland Act of 2017 can't work without oversight and enforcement. Staff shortages and low pay force counties to use untrained jailers. More than 3,000 Texas jailers – 14 percent of the total – work under a temporary license.

County jails hold large numbers of mentally ill and addicted people they're not equipped, or staffed, to handle. Moreover, many people enter jail diseased or in poor health. In the wake of an opioid and methamphetamine epidemic in Texas, some experience the horrific agony of withdrawal in a holding cell during intake.

Larger, overriding social problems, however, don't excuse indifference, cruelty, excessive force, gross incompetence, or violations of state laws.

Counties are responsible for maintaining constitutional standards in their jails, protecting taxpayers from liability, and ensuring the health and safety of prisoners, whose lives are solely dependent on the care of their keepers.

Counties and local jails too often fail to meet those mandates. When they do, the responsibility for oversight and accountability falls squarely on the broad shoulders of state government.

(Editor's note: A summary of the 25 investigations, “Neglect in custody,” is listed online at www.palestineherald.com)

Texas law enforcement agencies are twisting the law to conceal vital information about in-custody deaths.

The so-called dead suspect's exemption to the Texas Public Information Act permits sheriffs, police chiefs, and district attorneys to withhold documents and other information on cases that don't result in a criminal conviction or deferred adjudication -- even after a suspect dies.

Negligence is not typically considered a crime, even when lethal. Thus, the loophole conceals information, even from family members, on practically all jail and other in-custody deaths. 

Legislation often has unintended consequences. The Texas House and Senate in 1997 enacted the exemption to protect the privacy of people investigated, but not indicted, by a grand jury -- not to cover up how suspects died in jails.

More than 20 years later, legislator ought to abolish this loophole in open government law, or amend it to require law enforcement agencies to release information after a person either dies or consents. 

To keep taxpayer-funded agencies accountable and transparent, neglect and incompetence should be subject to the same oversight and scrutiny as is criminal wrongdoing.

Many of the more than 100 deaths a year in Texas jails involve negligence, a Herald-Press investigation found. When that happens, the public deserves to know how and why. 

Without the release in June of a Texas Rangers report, the people would not have known prisoner Rhonda Newsome, 50, died in the Anderson County Jail nearly seven hours after the hospital informed medical staff she faced imminent death without immediate medical attention.

Nor would Herald-Press readers have known medical staff tried to use an improperly stored defibrillator on Newsome that lacked adult pads and working batteries.

Anderson County officials and taxpayers need information like that to correct mistakes and hold the jail's medical contractor accountable.

Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation, said her group will work with legislators next session to make information on in-custody deaths subject to public information law.

Eliminating the loophole might need only a clarification from the Attorney General's Office.

In May, Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell, citing the dead suspect's exemption, withheld the Rangers report on Newsome's death, after a grand jury found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Later, however, the Department of Public Safety voluntarily released the investigative report on Newsome, as well as two dozen others, to the Herald-Press.

The release of the reports by DPS raises the question of whether the exemption meets the customary standards for concealing information under Texas law, such as posing a security threat.

Either way, the easiest way to end these shenanigans is to abolish or amend the law.

Given the troubling number of in-custody deaths in Texas, the Freedom of Information Foundation and other open government advocates ought to make ending this misused exemption their top legislative priority. 

Texas is heading for nearly 115 jail deaths this year; considering a likely undercount, the news for the Lone Star State is even more grim.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards' list of jail fatalities, generally considered the official count, omits about a dozen deaths listed by the Texas Attorney General. Including the fatalities listed by the AG's Office, custodial deaths in Texas will tally almost 130 in 2019.

Either way, Texas, which accounts for more than 10 percent of all U.S. jail deaths, will record its deadliest year ever, an increase in deaths over last year of at least 15 percent.

The Commission on Jail Standards and Attorney General both have offices at 300 W. 15th St., in Austin. Given the proximity of the two agencies, their failure to compile a uniform count raises the question of whether state government can start solving a problem it's not even competent enough to measure.

At any rate, to blame budget cuts for the failure of the two agencies to cross-check their lists, as one official did, is ludicrous.

By mid-November, the list from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards totaled 99 in-custody deaths. The AG's list reported a far smaller number, but still included cases not on the TCJS list.

By law, Texas counties must report in-custody deaths to both agencies. Obviously, some counties did not. Other counties might not have reported to either agency.

To their credit, the Commission on Jail Standards and Office of Attorney General last month agreed to meet regularly, after the Herald-Press noted discrepancies in their lists. 

Officials from each agency, however, should not limit joint meetings to fact checking. In the real world, getting an accurate count of jail deaths should not take endless meetings by state bureaucrats. It should take two people – one from each agency – about two hours to get it done. 

The totals could merge into a single count, after officials review investigations by the Texas Rangers and establish whether the two lists have been using the same criteria.

Meetings between the Commission on Jail Standards and Office of Attorney General should focus on the heavy lifting: Finding ways to oversee Texas' 250 local jails, bolster enforcement of state standards and laws governing their operations, and ensure all counties report custodial deaths.

At issue are not only violations of state standards, but also criminal offenses related to laws rarely enforced. Falsifying observation logs, for example, amounts to tampering with government records, a state jail felony; not reporting in-custody deaths to the state is a misdemeanor.

Without oversight and enforcement, prisoners without convictions will continue to die in large numbers, despite commendable legislative reforms such as the Sandra Bland Act of 2017.

Working together, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards and Office of Attorney General offer could accomplish something amazing: Making state government smart enough to, not only measure custodial deaths, but also save some lives.

Texas legislators should not wait until the next session in 2021 to tackle the neglect, incompetence, and indifference that caused, or contributed to, a record number of in-custody deaths this year. 

The Legislature's mandate is clear and urgent: Reduce unnecessary jail deaths and bring health care in Texas jails in line with the U.S. Constitution and community standards of decency.

Despite recent reforms, in-custody deaths in 2019 for pre-trial detainees in Texas jails will rise to 110 or more, up from 98 last year, and about 95 a year over the previous decade.

Making matters worse, this year's official count of roughly 110 is at least a dozen short of the real number, and Texas already reports 10 percent of all in-custody deaths in the United States.    

Oversight needed

Texas' 250 county jails hold 70,000 prisoners at any given time. Policy reforms to oversee this enormous system should include, at minimum, additional state jail inspectors and better coordination and communication between the Texas Commission on Jail Standards and Office of Attorney General.

To improve health care in Texas jails, legislators also should consider an independent ombudsman's office, reporting directly to the state Legislature.

It's unrealistic to expect local sheriffs to consistently expose malfeasance inside their own jails. In Anderson County, for example, Sheriff Greg Taylor did everything he could to conceal information about the 2018 death of prisoner Rhonda Newsome, 50, even from Newsome's family.

Other sheriffs have acted with equal arrogance, treating county jails as their personal property, instead of public offices paid for by the people.

Rigorous oversight that will result in fewer in-custody deaths starts with enforcing the law on both sides of the bars.

A Herald-Press investigation into in-custody deaths over the last two years found numerous examples of Texas jailers committing low-level felonies by not making required checks on prisoners, and then falsifying observation logs to cover up their misconduct.

Any reform package enacted by the Legislature also should include measures to get an accurate count of in-custody deaths in Texas. The Herald-Press found the attorney general's list this year includes a dozen deaths omitted from the TCJS list, generally considered the official count. State officials can't fix a problem they can't measure.

No one is watching

In general, the laws and standards governing Texas jails are adequate.

The Sandra Bland Act, named after a 28-year-old prisoner who died in the Waller County Jail in 2015, made significant changes, including standards and protocols for identifying, diverting, and treating mentally ill prisoners.

This year, a new law requires temporary jailers to get their licenses, and the training that comes with them, in 90 days instead of a year.

Even exemplary standards, however, can't work if they're not enforced.

The hard truth is, no one is watching jails in the Lone Star State. With only four inspectors, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards covers 250 county jails, spread over 270,000 square miles. TCJS also lacks enforcement powers.

To his credit, state Rep. Garnet Coleman (D.–Houston), a founding member of the House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, will hold public hearings on jail conditions next year.

When the next legislative session convenes in January 2021, Coleman and his caucus ought to have a running start on crafting a bi-partisan plan to alleviate the problems identified in the Herald-Press series, “Death without conviction.”

The PHP series found, among other things, excessive force, failures to identify or treat severe mental illness or suicidal tendencies, disregarding prisoners' pleas, excessive delays in treatment, and a culture of indifference to human suffering.

Without convictions, inmates charged with minor crimes, such as public intoxication, drug possession, or criminal trespass, received virtual death sentences from medical neglect.

Some of these problems are systemic, aggravated by poor management, a lack of resources, and understaffing. Others, however, reflect the moral standards of barbarism and cruelty. Among them: The outrageous practice, reported in a TCJS evaluation, of county jails releasing severely ill prisoners to the streets to avoid the scrutiny that may accompany in-custody deaths.

Only by turning a blind eye to human suffering, the U.S. Constitution, state law, and due process can Texas fail to act.

Nearly a year after Rhonda Newsome died in the Anderson County Jail, the public knows nothing about how she died, or whether negligence contributed to her death. With official investigations wrapped up, it's time to release any video surveillance or reports that could provide some answers.

On May 15, following an investigation by Texas Ranger Chris Baggett, a Grand Jury cleared Sheriff Greg Taylor and his staff of criminal wrongdoing. Last week, however, Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell still refused to release video or reports pertaining to Newsome's death.

Because the Rangers investigation did not result in a conviction or deferred adjudication, Mitchell said, the documents remain exempt from state public information law.

In citing the so-called dead suspect's exemption to the Texas Public Information Act, Mitchell is twisting the law's intent. The exemption, enacted in 1997, purports to protect the privacy of the accused, not conceal how suspects died in jail. 

Moreover, even if state law doesn't require Mitchell to release the documents, it doesn't prevent her from doing so. In fact, open government and public accountability demand it.  

Newsome, 50, died June 15 of last year, three months after she was jailed on assault charges stemming from a family fight. Police reported Newsome had been prescribed medications for high blood pressure, depression, and a thyroid condition. She had also received mental health treatment at Access in Palestine. 

Since Newsome's death, Anderson County, buttressed by state agencies, has demonstrated a shameful lack of transparency. It has steadfastly withheld documents, including video surveillance and jail medical records.

Not surprisingly, the sheriff's office has led the way. Citing federal privacy laws, Taylor denied Newsome's son, Regan Kimbrough, his mother's medical records. Incredibly, his office also told the Herald-Press it had erased, or taped over, jailhouse video from the day Newsome died.

On Thursday, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards told the Herald-Press that editors could view a damaged copy of the video in Austin. On Monday, however, the commission rescinded the offer, following objections by the Anderson County Sheriff's Office.

An earlier investigation by the jail standards commission – without an on-site visit – found no violations of state standards in Newsome's death. A coroner's report concluded Newsome died of natural causes.

Commission findings conflict with statements several former jail prisoners made to the Herald-Press. They said Newsome, swollen on her left side and bleeding from the mouth, had asked for a doctor for three days, and pleaded for hospital treatment for at least 12 hours, before she died.

They also said jail staff failed to make hourly face-to-face checks on prisoners, as state jail standards require.

About the only thing the public knows with reasonable certainty is that, given the Grand Jury's findings, jail staff did not intentionally harm Newsome. That should comfort no one. 

Concealing information just stokes suspicion and speculation. Anderson County should release any documents on Newsome's death, including surveillance video, and put the rumors to rest – assuming, that is, there really is nothing to hide.

A Texas Rangers investigation into the death of Anderson County prisoner Rhonda Newsome showed negligence caused, or contributed to, her death. The most egregious examples include failing to get her to the hospital and attempting to use a malfunctioning defibrillator on her.

Even without evidence of criminal wrongdoing, Anderson County commissioners should hold the sheriff's office accountable for negligence. 

At minimum, commissioners should ask Sheriff Greg Taylor to explain the defibrillator's malfunction and the failure to get Newsome to the hospital. They should also request a plan to correct these problems.

A law enforcement agency like the Texas Rangers, handling criminal wrongdoing only, can't do it. Independent oversight of the sheriff's office for non-criminal negligence must come first from the Anderson County Commission, especially Judge Robert Johnston.  

The case for negligence is compelling.

The report on the Texas Rangers investigation, obtained by the Herald-Press this month after several freedom-of-information requests, found Newsome, 50, died in a holding cell nearly seven hours after Palestine Regional Medical Center alerted the jail nurse about Newsome's critical condition.

Newsome's blood tests, from blood delivered that morning, were dangerously abnormal. They showed life-threatening conditions, without immediate medical attention.  

Texas Rangers investigator Stephen Baggett also noted the defibrillator that jail staff attempted to use on Newsome lacked a functioning battery and adult-sized pads. It also was under a factory recall.

The defibrillator should have been checked daily; the jail nurse didn't even know who was responsible for maintaining it.

On Monday, Johnston said commissioners will review the private contract for jail health care, before the annual agreement expires Jan. 1. That's where the commission's responsibility ends, he said.

We disagree. It's Anderson County's contract and specifications. The county is responsible for overseeing them, and ensuring its contractor delivers a constitutionally mandated service. 

Commissioners also control the sheriff's budget. It's their job to ensure the money is spent efficiently and effectively. Malfunctioning medical equipment and a communication breakdown in a medical emergency are neither efficient nor effective.

Newsome died on June 15 of last year, three months after she was jailed on assault charges for attacking a family member with a scissors. She had undergone psychiatric treatment at a local mental health center.

Taylor has attempted to conceal every bit of information about Newsome's death, even withholding Newsome's jail medical records from her son.

A June 15 editorial in the Herald-Press, “Negligence contributed to Newsome's death,” reported the findings of the Texas Rangers' investigation. A month ago, commissioners could say they didn't know.

Now they know.

If they choose to do nothing, they shame themselves and the county, and disregard their duty to the taxpayers, who pay for this inexcusable incompetence and any civil litigation that results from it. 

For two months prescription drugs in the Anderson County Jail were given out, and taken, without records or oversight. That's what the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found during an unannounced inspection two weeks ago.

Despite Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor's dismissive remarks, the infraction is serious. From July to this month, staff, or even prisoners, could have improperly dispensed controlled substances, including narcotics such as hydrocodone. Conversely, medical staff could have denied prisoners the prescribed medications they needed.

Taylor, predictably, downplayed this violation of state jail standards, characterizing it as a "paperwork" issue.

A "paperwork" problem would aptly describe an employee expense report that was submitted on the wrong form. “Paperwork” is not a fitting description of this lapse in oversight: Improperly taking prescription medications can lead to injury, addiction, or even death.

To prevent abuse, every controlled substance dispensed from a local pharmacy is recorded on a statewide, or nationwide, database. Everyone must submit to identity checks when picking up prescription drugs.  

The control and monitoring of prescription drugs ought to be at least as rigorous in a jail.  

How prescription medications are dispensed and monitored appears to be a systemic problem in the Anderson County Jail. The issue was cited in the wrongful death lawsuit filed last month by Rhonda Newsome's family, and by several prisoners interviewed by the Herald-Press.

Newsome, 50, died in the Anderson County Jail on June 15, 2018. An autopsy found 13 controlled substances in her system that had not been prescribed, the lawsuit alleges.

The TCJS report, obtained by the Herald-Press Friday, showed problems with documenting prescription medications began when the county's medical contractor, TAKET LLC, switched from traditional paper reporting to a digital system.

When the electronic system failed, TAKET did not re-establish paper reporting, eliminating so-called medical administration record (MAR) sheets to document what drugs prisoners were taking. 

The commission ordered TAKET to immediately resume paper reporting. Until further notice, the contractor must also scan and email all MAR documents to TCJS. 

Taylor said the jail fixed the problem within a day of the inspection. If the issue was that easy to resolve, why wasn't it done before?

At issue is the competence of the county's medical contractor, and the lack of oversight of its annual contract.

In a statement given to the Herald-Press, Taylor said he retains full confidence in his staff, including the medical contractor.

County commissioners, however, and the taxpayers of Anderson County, should take a more realistic view and step up their oversight of health care in the county jail.