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County not liable in inmate's suicide

It takes a jury less than a day to clear the County Commission, the former sheriff and a corrections deputy.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE
Published February 4, 2006

Florence Patterson was having trouble breathing. Minutes before, she had received a call - the jury had a verdict.

She rode an elevator to the courtroom, where every detail of her son's jailhouse suicide has been rehashed and debated during the four-week trial.

It has been five years since Patterson filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county.

It took jurors less than a day to reach a decision late Friday afternoon.

"They hurried," Patterson said.

She figured that didn't bode well.

Indeed, the jury found that the Pinellas County Commission, former Sheriff Everett Rice and corrections Deputy Mark Ondrey were not liable for her son's suicide.

Patterson took the verdict quietly and declined to comment afterward. Her attorney, Roy L. Glass, said he respected the outcome.

"The jury who sat there and took copious notes and asked incisive questions made a decision," Glass said. "I'm not going to question their decision."

Pinellas County Attorney Susan Churuti said the trial was a vindication of Rice, who during his 16 years as sheriff adopted suicide prevention measures at the county jail where John Patterson hanged himself in 1999.

Patterson, 42, of Treasure Island, had been addicted to drugs and alcohol and suffered from bipolar disorder and anxiety when he turned himself in to authorities on a probation violation, according to court pleadings. When he entered the jail, he brought medications for various mental illnesses.

The day before he hanged himself with a shoelace, Ondrey was patrolling the psychological unit where Patterson was held.

Glass had argued that Ondrey knew Patterson was suicidal and recklessly disregarded his condition.

In closing statements Thursday, the St. Petersburg attorney stood with a marker and giant sketch paper, writing dollar amounts he believed should be awarded to the estate of John Patterson. His total: $1.2-million.

The Florida Model Jail Standards has two key tenets, Glass told jurors. Responsibility and accountability. For each syllable in those words, the family should be awarded $100,000, he said.

"Anything less than that is half-justice," he said. Thomas E. Spencer, the county's attorney in the case, said the argument for damages had been exaggerated. As for the claim that Patterson's 6-year-old daughter, Kaylin, will suffer irreparable harm from the loss of her father, Spencer was incredulous.

If John Patterson was alive to raise her, Spencer said, "Her life would be a train wreck. ... A life of daddy slamming phones, yelling at mommy, taking drugs, gambling away their income."

In rebuttal, Glass told jurors he found the defense's argument repulsive.

"A train wreck?" he said.

[Last modified February 4, 2006, 00:32:20]