Ashley Elizabeth Maxwell Dies After Incarceration in Gregg County, Texas Jail
The Gregg County Sheriff’s Department, in Longview, Texas, filed a report regarding the custodial death of Ashley Elizabeth Maxwell. Ms. Maxwell was only 43 years old at the time of her death. We provide in this post information from that report, and we make no allegation of any wrongdoing against anyone specifically.
The report indicates that the most serious offense for which Ms. Maxwell was arrested was for resisting arrest. It also indicates that she was in a multiple-occupancy cell, and that she entered the jail on May 24, 2022 at 4:44 p.m. It further indicates that she passed away at a medical facility. The summary portion of the report reads in its entirety:
“Suicide by hanging in a cell that housed 3 other inmates. Victim was booked in on 5/24/22 for Criminal Trespass and Resisting Arrest, and was placed on suicide watch upon housing, where she remained for the jailing due to her having a documented history of mental illness and drug abuse. On 05/27/2022, at about 10:40 PM, a jailer doing an unscheduled floor walk found Victim hanging by the neck, against the front metal grate cell wall of her cell. Victim used the cell’s television cable wire to form a makeshift noose, and she secured the wire and noose to the heavy wire mesh cell wall that made up the front wall of the cell. The cable extended from the ceiling, down to an area low enough to allow Maxwell to climb the steel mesh wall to reach the noose, and high enough to allow her body to hang from the noose with the feet off of the floor. Victim had secured the cable and noose to the wall by threading the cable through the mesh, and making a knot there, which took the weight off of the ceiling wire receptacle and allowed the cable to support her weight. The jailer who found Victim immediately called for assistance, and with the additional staff, they were able to remove her from the cable noose. Victim was placed on the floor, and staff began CPR on her. Staff also had EMS summoned, who later arrived and took over resuscitative measures. EMS later transported Victim to Christus Good Shepherd Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at about 11:08 pm. The Texas Rangers investigated the death, with assistance from the GCSO CID. Justice of the Peace B.J. Jameson performed the inquest at the hospital, and ordered an autopsy; results are pending.”
Our Texas jail abuse and neglect law firm has handled and is handling a number of suicide cases across Texas. We find, unfortunately, that many such suicides occur when the victim is arrested for a relatively minor offense. The most common offenses, in our experience, are public intoxication and criminal trespass. Thus, these nuisance offenses lead to incarceration of mentally ill people in jails across our state. Arresting officers are required, if they believe that a person has a mental disability that would result in a danger to that person or others, to take such a person to the nearest inpatient mental health facility and only to a jail in an “extreme emergency.” We do not know enough about Ms. Maxwell’s arrest, and the circumstances surrounding it, to determine what if any knowledge arresting officers had regarding her mental health issues.
It is interesting, to say the least, that the narrative in the custodial death report indicates that Ms. Maxwell was on suicide watch “due to her having a documented history of mental illness and drug abuse.” There is absolutely no excuse for a person who is on suicide watch, in a Texas county jail, to be housed in a cell with tie-off points, items with which the person can form a ligature, and/or phone cords or cables which can be used as a ligature. It is our opinion, handling a number of these cases, that doing so equates to deliberate indifference and potentially gives rise to liability under federal law.
We continue to see far too many suicides across Texas in our jails. It is vitally important that people with suicidal tendencies be housed in cells, clothed only with suicide smocks, and not allowed access to items with which they can harm themselves. Jails must do more. If jailers are deliberately indifferent and/or act objectively unreasonably regarding suicidal tendencies, and/or a policy, practice, and/or custom of a county is involved, and an inmate dies, then certain surviving family members may be able to bring a lawsuit in federal court. In Texas, it is important that an appropriate attorney be contacted, as constitutional rights cases involving inmate deaths are complicated and require certain expertise.
Dean Malone
Dean Malone