A federal jury has found the county of San Diego at fault in the death of a heroin-withdrawing, asthmatic inmate, awarding his North County family a $3 million judgment.
Daniel Sisson, a 21-year-old Cardiff by the Sea resident, died in June 2011 in the Vista Detention Facility from asthma asphyxiation – a slow death akin to prolonged drowning, his family says.
His parents sued the county and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, accusing three nurses and two deputies of not following protocol and allowing Sisson’s death.
The lawsuit went to trial at the end of October, and on Monday, the federal jury ruled in favor of the Sisson family.
“And I think what the jury saw was just the complete and abject neglect of Daniel Sisson’s medical needs while he was in the jail,” said the family’s attorney Chris Morris.
The jury found Sisson’s civil rights had been violated by individual nurses and the county’s decision to allow the inmate to detox in general population, its improper cell checks and its training policies, according to Morris.
For those reasons, the Sisson family was awarded $3 million.
The county had argued when Sisson was booked into jail for possession of a controlled substance, he initially failed to disclose he was using illicit drugs. After jail staff found out, he refused care on several occasions, the defense said.
But Morris said while the policy states detoxing inmates must be monitored, those who interacted with Sisson, such as the deputies, were not trained to spot the signs and symptoms of withdrawal.
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Surveillance videos – one of the key pieces of evidence -- shows deputies walking by Sisson’s cell without checking on him because they were not trained to do so, Morris claims.
Sisson’s heroin withdrawal triggered his fatal asthma attack. Deputies did not check on him for at least six hours, long after he had died, the family’s lawsuit alleges.
“The [Sisson] family’s just happy that there is a chance that the policies and procedures that were in place that weren’t followed that need to be redone with respect to detoxing inmates in the jail—that the county will, as a result of this verdict, be forced to take a really hard look at those procedures,” said Morris.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department has declined to comment on this verdict.
