Custodial Death Report for Daniel Luis Martinez Filed with Texas Attorney General – Suicidal Statements Made

The Potter County Sheriff’s Department filed a custodial death report with the Attorney General of Texas regarding the death of Daniel Luis Martinez.  Information in this post was obtained from that report, and we make no allegation of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Martinez was allegedly initially incarcerated at the Potter County Jail on April 23, 2018.  On May 1, 2018, at approximately 10:30 p.m., Mr. Martinez was found apparently having committed suicide by hanging.  The custodial death report indicates that Mr. Martinez did not appear intoxicated by drugs or alcohol, did not exhibit any mental health problems, and did not exhibit any medical problems.  However, the custodial death report indicates that Mr. Martinez had made suicidal statements.

Texas County jails have a constitutional obligation to protect inmates from themselves if the inmates have known suicidal or self-harm tendencies or have made statements or taken actions indicating that they have such tendencies.  This protection is provided to pretrial detainees under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Thus far, we are unaware as to whether Mr. Martinez was on suicide watch.  If so, the jail should have, among a number of other things, removed from his cell items with which he could harm himself.  The jail should have also continuously monitored Mr. Martinez to assure that suicide did not occur.  Perhaps news media will ferret out these issues and/or the Sheriff’s Department will provide more information to the public about what it knew about Mr. Martinez and what it did in response.

Written By: Dean Malone

Dean Malone

Dean Malone is the founder of Law Offices of Dean Malone, P.C., a jail neglect civil rights law firm. Mr. Malone earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA, and from Baylor University School of Law with a general civil litigation concentration. Mr. Malone served in several staff positions for the Baylor Law Review, including executive editor. Mr. Malone is an experienced trial lawyer, trying a number of cases to jury verdict and also handling arbitrations through final hearing. He heads the jail neglect section of his law firm, in which lawyers litigate cases involving serious injury and death resulting from jail neglect and abuse. Lawyers frequently refer cases to Mr. Malone due to his focus on this very complicated civil rights practice area.