By Tyler Dukes
WRAL
RALEIGH, N.C. — A prison nursing supervisor fired after a mentally ill inmate died of dehydration last year will get her job back, a North Carolina judge ruled this week.
Jacqueline Clark appealed after state corrections officials last year dismissed her for unacceptable personal conduct and “grossly inefficient job performance” following the death of inmate Michael Kerr. In his decision, Administrative Law Judge Augustus Elkins wrote that, although Kerr’s death was “tragic in every sense of the word,” the state failed to prove that Clark violated policy or inadequately supervised staff in the days leading up to March 12, when Kerr was found dead in the back of an inmate transfer van at Central Prison.
Kerr, who suffered from schizoaffective disorder, was left handcuffed in solitary confinement for five days at Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville before prison officials decided to move him to Central Prison. By then, the restraints were so caked with fecal matter, officers had to remove them with bolt cutters.
“This and other evidence evokes great emotion, but this case should and must be singularly focused on this Petitioner, who had assumed her Nurse Supervisor III role just two months prior to the death of Mr. Kerr,” Elkins wrote.
A federal grand jury and the State Bureau of Investigation, which is overseen by the same administrative department as the prison system, are investigating the incident for possible criminal conduct.
Full story: Judge overturns firing of prison nurse in inmate dehydration case