Dallas Jail Settles Mistreatment Lawsuit

DALLAS -- County officials approved a nearly $1 million settlement Tuesday with the families of three mentally ill inmates who were denied medication while in the country's seventh-largest detention complex.

Just over half of the award went to James Mims, a Dallas County jail inmate whose psychiatric medications were withheld for two months in 2004, his attorney David Finn said. Mims also nearly died when water was shut off in his cell for two weeks.

"They could just not afford to have this case go before a jury," Finn said.

Commissioners approved the $950,000 agreement without discussion.

The federal civil rights lawsuit was filed in December 2004 on behalf of inmates Mims, Kennedy Nickerson and Clarence Lee Grant Jr., who died in custody.

Grant, who had paranoid schizophrenia, was found dead in his cell after not receiving medicine for five days in 2003, according to court records. An autopsy showed he died from complications of diabetes, pneumonia and other ailments.

Nickerson, who also has paranoid schizophrenia, was released from jail in 2003 without medication. A few days later he was found on the street dehydrated, suffering from fever and seizures, court records show.

The U.S. Department of Justice told the county in December that the jail violates inmates' rights by failing to provide adequate medical and mental health care, and warned that a lawsuit could be filed if the problems weren't fixed.