Man wins $15-million for drunk driving arrest

Stephen Slevin was held in solitary confinement for 22 months after a DWI. The photo on the left shows him after his detainment; on the right is his booking photo, when he was healthier and clean-shaven. Beware the Drunk Driving Prhibition War on America

"Strictly speaking, a driver can register a BAC of 0.00% and still be convicted of a DUI. The level of BAC does not clear a driver when it is below the 'presumed level of intoxication.'"
—Tennessee Driver Handbook and Driver License Study Guide

Man left in solitary confinement for 2 years gets $15.5 million settlement

By Elizabeth Chuck
NBC News
6 March 2013

A man who spent 22 long months in solitary confinement in a New Mexico jail, neglected to the point where he was forced to pull out his own tooth because he said he wasn't allowed to see a dentist, will receive $15.5 million for the ordeal.

The settlement with Dona Ana County, N.M., falls short of the $22 million that Stephen Slevin, 59, and his attorney had asked for, but is still one of the largest prisoner civil rights payouts in U.S. history.

"His mental health has been severely compromised from the time he was in that facility. That continues to be the same. No amount of money will bring back what they took away from him," Matt Coyte, Slevin's Albuquerque-based attorney, said on Wednesday. "But it’s nice to be able to get him some money so he can improve where he is in life and move on."

Slevin's story of inhumane treatment in the Dona Ana County Jail, where he was incarcerated from 2005 to 2007 — which he said included his toenails growing so long that they curled around his foot, and fungus festering on his skin because he was deprived of showers — first received publicity last January, when he was awarded the $22 million.

Dona Ana County had been appealing the verdict ever since, refusing to pay Slevin.

But the legal battle ended Tuesday with the $15.5 million settlement, a number decided on in court mediation, according to Jess Williams, Dona Ana County's public information director.

An initial payment of $6 million is expected to be wired to Slevin by the end of this week; he will receive the rest in installments in the following days.

For Slevin — who has lung cancer and has beaten doctors' odds for how long he would survive — the case was not about how much money he could make, his attorney said, but about getting recognition of how poorly he was treated and the scars he still has.

"He's had lots of difficulties over the years. I don't think he will stop having difficulties," Coyte said. "The courage he had in the trial was magnificent." Slevin's mistreatment by Dona Ana County started the moment he was arrested back in August of 2005, his attorney told NBC News.

"He was driving through New Mexico and arrested for a DWI, and he allegedly was in a stolen vehicle. Well, it was a car he had borrowed from a friend; a friend had given him a car to drive across the country," Coyte said in an interview last January.

Slevin was depressed at the time, Coyte explained, and wanted to get out of New Mexico. Instead, he found himself in jail.

"When he gets put in the jail, they think he's suicidal, and they put him in a padded cell for three days, but never give him any treatment."

Nor did they give him a trial, Coyte said. Slevin said he never saw a judge during his time in confinement.

After three days in the padded cell, jail guards transferred Slevin into solitary confinement with no explanation.

"Their policy is to then just put them in solitary" if they appear to have mental health issues, Coyte told NBC News.

While in solitary confinement, a prisoner is entitled to one hour per day out of the cell, but often times, Slevin wasn't even granted that, Coyte said.

"Your insanity builds. Some people holler or throw feces out their cell doors," he said. "Others rock back and forth under a blanket for a year or more, which is what my client did."

By the time Slevin got out of jail, his hair was shaggy and overgrown, his beard long, and his face pale and sunken, a drastic contrast from the clean-shaven booking photo taken of him when he was arrested two years prior.

"Without that picture, we couldn't have gotten where we were," Coyte said of the lawsuit.

Coyte would not reveal where Slevin is living now for privacy reasons, only saying that he was not in New Mexico. He said he receives support from family and is "doing well" and "feels optimistic" about his treatment for cancer, which is unrelated to his time in jail and was not a factor in his trial.

Williams, the Dona Ana County public information officer, said no jail personnel have been fired over Slevin's treatment. However, he said, the jail has been working to improve the care it provides for mentally ill inmates.

"We now have dedicated wings of the building, one for males, one for females, that are totally dedicated for closely supervised mental health provisions and care," he said. "We've greatly expanded our medical area and we have contracted out at great expense for both medical and mental health services within the facility."

The budget at Dona Ana County Jail for medical care for inmates has nearly doubled since 2005, the year that Slevin was arrested, Williams said.

In a statement released by the Dona Ana County Commission, the jail also outlined plans for a crisis triage center "that will help stabilize mentally-ill persons who have committed no crimes but who represent a danger to themselves or others in the eyes of law-enforcement professionals."

But for Coyte, Slevin's attorney, there's still one more change that needs to be made: Dona Ana County Jail's warden.

"If you were in the trial and heard what the person who ran the facility said, you would be appalled," Coyte said. "I get lots of people [inmates] calling from that jail asking for help. Am I pleased that they've spent more money in the jail? Absolutely. I'm pleased that Mr. Slevin's case has made a difference in the jail. But the same people are running it, and it's an attitude of how you run something."

Related content:

Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest

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Letters from solitary confinement reveal DWI man's despair

By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

A man arrested for driving while intoxicated and then forced into solitary confinement for two years tried to get help by writing to the jail's nurse, but the only response he got was a dose of sedatives, his lawyer said.

Stephen Slevin, 57, was arrested in August 2005 in New Mexico’s Dona Ana County, charged with aggravated driving while under the influence and possession of a stolen vehicle, although Slevin maintains the car was lent to him by a friend. On Tuesday, a federal jury in Sante Fe awarded him $22 million in damages for enduring inhumane conditions in the Dona Ana County jail, which he emerged from "hollow," Matt Coyte, his lawyer, told msnbc.com on Wednesday.

Slevin had one medical examination after being arrested and was labeled suicidal, his lawyer said. He was jailed in lieu of posting a $40,000 bond.

“They put him in a padded cell for three days, but they never give him any treatment; their policy is to then just put them in solitary” if there are mental health issues, Coyte told msnbc.com Wednesday. •Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest

Coyte described Slevin in court documents as suffering with lifelong mental illness. He told msnbc.com that at the time of his arrest, Slevin had been depressed, and was borrowing a friend’s car because he wanted to get out of Las Cruces, N.M., where he had been living at the time.

He was physically healthy, but desperate to get treatment for his depression that he had been suffering with prior to being in solitary confinement - a cell with no natural light that prisoners are in 23 hours a day, although often times, guards failed to even grant Slevin his one hour of daily recreation time, his lawyer told msnbc.com.

Slevin sent more than a dozen letters to the jail nurse starting days after he was arrested, NBC affiliate KOB.com reported.

“I have not slept in days,” says one letter from Sept. 4, 2005, a couple weeks into solitary confinement. “I’m in a deep depression.” The letter also mentions his lack of appetite.

His mental decline

Two months later, KOB.com reported, Slevin wrote a letter again pleading for help, saying, “My dreams have been both weird and bizarre.”

By the end of November 2005, he wrote, “I’m afraid to close my eyes.”

Coyte, his lawyer, told KOB that if Slevin got any response at all, it was just to up his sedatives.

“He referred to a ‘Dr. Don’ [in the letters],” Coyte told KOB.com. “There was no doctor looking after him. There was a nurse, the nurse practitioner.”

But the so-called nurse practitioner only had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and no actual medical qualifications, KOB reported.

After a few months, Slevin gave up, writing: “I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

“That was when he fell into a delirium,” Coyte told KOB.com.

Meanwhile, correspondence with the outside world tapered off as well, Coyte told msnbc.com on Thursday.

“His sister was writing him letters and sending him money,” Coyte said. “She thought he would get out soon enough; she would send him small amounts of money every few weeks.”

But when she didn’t hear back from Slevin, she became concerned. She called the jail, Coyte said, but was not given much information.

“She had no idea the condition he was in,” he said. “She is on the other side of the country with limited means. She wrote letters and he responded at the beginning, but then he lost touch with her. If your family member doesn’t write back, you may feel like they don’t want to talk you anymore; it wouldn’t cross your mind that something like this was happening.”

It wouldn’t be until months later that Slevin’s sister, whose name and location Coyte did not give, found out what her brother was going through: Forced to pull out his own tooth because he was denied access to a dentist, he told reporters on Tuesday. Toenails curling around his foot because they were so long. Basically forgotten about in his dark cell for more than 22 months.

"Jail guards were walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin told KOB.com. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."

Slevin’s sister and other family members actively fought for his release near the end of his detainment once they became aware of his plight, Coyte told msnbc.com Thursday.

“It was her and his aunt and various other family members who were calling legislators, calling county commissioners, saying, ‘Where’s my brother?’” he said.

'Deplorable' conditions

The answer, for most of his 22-month detainment, was that he was in “deplorable” conditions of his solitary “pod,” court documents state, except for a 14-day period in May 2007, when he was sent to New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, N.M., for a psychiatric review. He had lost a third of his body weight by that point, documents say, and had bed sores and a fungal infection on his skin.

“As your insanity builds, some people holler or throw feces out their cell doors,” Coyte said Wednesday. “Others rock back and forth under a blanket for a year or more, which is what my client did.”

At the Behavioral Health Institute, Slevin was able to shower and to shave his beard, which had grown long and scraggly during his time in solitary, Coyte said. His mood improved. But after two weeks there, he was sent back to his solitary pod in jail for another month, at which point his mental state deteriorated to the point where he was deemed unfit to participate in his defense, and all charges against him were ultimately dismissed. He was released on June 25, 2007.

It's not clear why he was sent back to solitary after his stint in the mental health institute.

Dona Ana County officials were tight-lipped about the case, refusing to answer questions about whether any jail employees were reprimanded or fired over Slevin's treatment.

"We do not discuss personnel issues," Jess Williams, Dona Ana County's public information director, told msnbc.com on Wednesday.

Williams also wouldn't comment on whether the $22 million the county was ordered to pay would come from taxpayer money, saying only, "Dona Ana County will appeal the verdict."

Coyte sued the Dona Ana County Board of County Commissioners, the County Detention Center, and the jail director and former medical director in December 2008. According to court documents, the county jail’s former medical director, Daniel Zemek prescribed “complicated psychotropic medications” to Slevin without ever seeing him, and renewed prescriptions for him for at least 10 months without an in-person visit. Zemek left the county jail but an adequate replacement for him wasn’t provided, the court documents allege, so jail director Chris Barela continued to have Zemek prescribe medication to Slevin, despite not treating him.

John W. Caldwell, the defendants’ attorney, did not return a phone call from msnbc.com on Thursday.

Coyte, Slevin’s attorney, said greed on the county’s part was partially to blame.

“Talk to the [Dona Ana] County Commissioners who were around in 2000 to 2004 who knew this stuff was going on, and didn’t care,” he said. “Another side to this case is this jail was built to make money housing federal detainees. This is a border town. There are a lot of federal detainees from immigration issues, and the jail charges the federal government a particular amount of money for each detainee.”

Slevin was a county inmate.

“Federal inmates got better care than state inmates,” he said. “There would be better psychiatric care for the federal inmates than for the state or county inmates.”

Slevin will take lifelong medication for his PTSD, although he continues to have support from his sister, Coyte said. Court records show he now lives in Virginia Beach, Va.

"There's a report out tonight that 24-years ago I was apprehended in Kennebunkport, Maine, for a DUI. That's an accurate story. I'm not proud of that. I oftentimes said that years ago I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much and I did on that night. I was pulled over. I admitted to the policeman that I had been drinking. I paid a fine. And I regret that it happened. But it did. I've learned my lesson."
—Governor George W. Bush, CNN Larry King Live, November 2, 2000 "I'm Barack Obama, the Marxist professor. I spent the last two years of high school in a daze. I drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically. Look I uh, when I was a kid , I inhaled, frequently. that was uh, that was the point. Pot helped, and booze. A little blow when you could afford it. Junkie, pothead, that's where I was headed. Now you know that guy ain't shit. Sorry ass motherfuckers got nothin on me, nothin. Shit's gettin way too complicated for me. There are white folks, then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you. You can put lipstick on a pig. You ain't my bitch nigger, buy your own damn fries. That's just how white folks will do ya."
-Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro, Dreams From My Father MP3

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