Attorneys representing Anthony “Tony” Mitchell, the inmate who died in January after being in custody of the Walker County Sheriff’s Office, filed a response in court Monday to a motion to strike that had been filed Friday on behalf of the law enforcement agency.
In the document, attorneys for Margaret Mitchell, Tony’s mother, raise several issues with the motion to strike.
The first issue mentioned is associated with sanctions asked for in the motion to strike.
“Any motion for sanctions pursuant to Rule 11 ‘must be made separately from any other motion’ and that the motion ‘must be served under Rule 5, but it must not be filed or be presented to the court if the challenged paper, claim, defense, contention, or denial is withdrawn or appropriately corrected within 21 days after service or within another time the court sets,’” it reads.
The filing goes on to say the motion to strike was filed and then corrected “to remove a typo found in the original document.” The response then notes an entire paragraph concerning sanctions was removed from the original document.
“Defendants’ premature filing of a baseless request for sanctions and its attempt to characterize that request as a “typo” is only the beginning of the factual inaccuracies in its motion,” it reads.
Another issue with the sheriff’s office’s motion to strike in the response is that a footnote said the WCSO had offered the plaintiff’s attorneys a chance to come review all video footage of Mitchell during his time in the Walker County Jail, but had not received a response to view the footage.
“…far from ignoring Defendants’ offer to view the video, Plaintiff’s counsel indicated that they were not able to come to view the video in defense counsel’s office due to scheduling issues and the need for an expert to review the video, and instead requested that Defendant provide it with copies of the surveillance video and body camera footage suitable for submission to an expert, along with other relevant documents. Plaintiff’s counsel’s response to the Rule 11 correspondence further states, ‘we look forward to you producing the information requested above. Once we have had a chance to review these documents and information, we will certainly revisit the allegations of the complaint and determine whether any changes or corrections are needed,” the response filing stated.
The response said a third area in which WCSO motion fails to state correct facts is a claim that the plaintiff alleges Mitchell was “definitely” placed in a freezer.
“However, this is not what the complaint alleges,” the filed response reads. “Each time the complaint mentions the word ‘freezer’ it states that Plaintiff was ‘likely’ placed in a freezer ‘or similar frigid environment.’ Plaintiff has never claimed to have direct evidence of what means Defendants used to bring Plaintiff’s temperature to 72 degrees or lower.
Compelling circumstantial evidence shows that Mitchell was exposed to a freezer or similar frigid environment during the last twenty-four hours of his life. As stated in the complaint, at 6:00 AM on the morning of January 25, 2022, when Karen Kelly went off her shift, Mitchell was awake and talkative in his isolation cell and not in any evident distress. By the time Mitchell arrived at Walker Baptist Hospital on the morning of January 26, his body temperature had plummeted to seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit or even lower. In the absence of extreme environmental cold, no medical condition can explain an over twenty-degree-Fahrenheit loss of body temperature in such a short time for a person who remains alive. Contrary to the speculation in footnote 3 of Defendants’ motion that some medical cause may be at fault, ‘there is no medical disease or natural cause that would explain a body temperature dropping that low,’ at least in the opinion of Jefferson County Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Yates, based on his review of the excerpts from the medical records quoted in the complaint as quoted in a news story about this case. The extreme drop in body temperature shows that Tony was exposed to a freezer or similar frigid environment during the last twenty-four hours of his life.
“Based on Plaintiff’s investigation, there is a freezer and another cooler in that jail,” the filing continued. “If Defendants had another means of bringing an inmates’ body temperature to 72 degrees or lower, Plaintiff will uncover that during the discovery phase of this case and amend her complaint accordingly. However, the freezer is certainly one of the few possible logical explanations for how Mitchell was exposed to fatally frigid conditions during his incarceration at the jail. Plaintiff’s counsel is not alone in thinking this. In the opinion of a physician discussing hypothermia in a published interview concerning this case, ‘If his [Mitchell’s] core temperature was truly 72 degrees, he was in a freezer.’”
The filing on Monday also dates defendants may not use a motion to strike to litigate disputed facts and contested theories of liability.
The document goes on to list a number of instances the WCSO attorney wanted struck, which the Mitchell family attorneys do not agree with. Some of those instances have to do with the lack of sheriff’s office personnel informing medical officials at Walker Baptist Medical Center of Mitchell’s alleged low body temperature.
“The medical records fully support these allegations, which are relevant to show that the doctors did not receive information about Mitchell’s severely hypothermic state from jail personnel, resulting in physicians initially giving ‘numerous rounds of epinephrine and also atropine and bicarb’ before ‘it was determined that he was severely hypothermic’ resulting in them changing their course of treatment to warm Mitchell to 30 centigrade before again ‘initiat[ing] cardioactive drugs and possible defibrillation.’ This allegation is highly relevant to deliberate indifference, as a reasonable factfinder could well infer that deputies’ failure to communicate Mitchell’s hypothermic state resulted in a further delay of appropriate warming treatment,” Monday’s filing stated.
The Mitchell family’s attorneys add in the filing concerning the allegations in the sheriff’s office’s motion to strike, “They are merely allegations that Defendants do not like, or hope to dispute, and Defendants cannot get rid of such allegations through a motion to strike.”
The entire 17-page response filed on Monday by the Mitchell family’s attorneys is embedded in this article.
My opinion is that the fact that Sheriff Nick Smith hasn’t resigned in disgrace is travesty on it’s own. The criminals at Walker County Sheriff’s Department who are responsible for the death of Anthony Mitchell, by direct action or inaction are guilty of both human rights violations, not unlike those found at Abu Gharib, Iraq, and violation of an American citizen’s civil rights to cause Mr. Mitchell’s death. Every red-blooded American should be outraged that those sworn to protect individuals in their care cavalierly lie, cover up, and hide behind the badge entrusted to them by the public. State charges and federal criminal charges should be the future for the corruption in Walker County. PS: Stop hiding behind your alleged “Christian” faith, Sheriff Nick Smith, because you’re actions are not in alignment with your actions and professional responsibilities for policy, training, and enforcement of your office.
They murdered that poor man