Leonard v. St. Charles County et al.

Jamie Leonard was subjected to what an expert witness with decades of jail and prison experience called “the most egregious failure” he had ever seen in a carceral setting. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure the being incarcerated does not constitute forfeiture of an individual’s right to basic dignity.

Mr. Leonard was arrested amid a psychotic episode. Once at the St. Charles County jail, he continued to decompensate. Despite being aware of his serious need for medical and psychiatric help, jail staff refused to provide him with the psychiatric and eye medication that his mother hand-delivered to the jail. Mr. Leonard was detained, naked, in a suicide-prevention cell.

During a cell search, officers pepper-sprayed Mr. Leonard directly in his diseased eye from close distance, even though the officer who sprayed Mr. Leonard admits he wasn’t dangerous. Officers then failed to decontaminate Mr. Leonard or assist him in washing his eyes out. Instead, they stood outside his cell and watched without intervening as Mr. Leonard dug his own eyeball out of its socket.

Mr. Leonard sued the county and several individual officers, citing excessive force in pepper-spraying him; deliberate indifference toward his medical needs both before; failure to take reasonable measures to stop him from self-harming; and the county’s longstanding custom of failing to provide medical care to its detainees that it knew was necessary. But the district court dismissed his claims after concluding, with no obvious evidentiary basis, that none of the individuals involved had any ill will toward Mr. Leonard and that the county had few prior similar failures.

The MacArthur Justice Center (MJC) represented Mr. Leonard on appeal in the Eighth Circuit, challenging the district court’s conclusions.

UPDATE

Despite extensive testimony from eyewitnesses and expert witnesses, as well as video evidence showing Mr. Leonard engaged in obvious acts of self-harm while jail staff stood by and did not intervene, a panel of the Eighth Circuit ruled that the jail officials can be shielded from accountability with qualified immunity.

MJC is petitioning the panel or, in the alternative, the full en banc court, to correct that erroneous decision.