Kevin Wiley did not look good.
“Coming down hard,” one of his bunkmates at the Issaquah City Jail observed on June 7, 2023. Probably fentanyl, others in the group cell agreed.
Jail staff knew the 43-year-old Wiley was detoxing, too — Wiley wrote on his intake form that he had used fentanyl the night before police arrested him on charges of stealing $420 worth of goods from Target.
Wiley heaved much of that night. Multiple bunkmates pushed an emergency intercom button to call guards’ attention to Wiley’s distress, but no one intervened. Around midnight, an inmate filled out a form requesting medical assistance and slipped it under the door for the guards.
Wiley woke the next morning and tried to eat some bread, but threw it back up. During the night he had dragged his mattress over to the toilet. Now he laid on his back on the mattress with his hands up.
“I can see his mouth periodically opening widely as if gasping for air,” a Kirkland police investigator later wrote in a timeline of security footage. Then he became still. Wiley remained in that position for more than half an hour before paramedics arrived.
The city of Issaquah recently paid $3 million to settle a legal claim from Wiley’s estate. Less than three months after Wiley’s death, another man died in the Issaquah jail after requesting medical attention for withdrawal symptoms. The city paid again — this time $2.5 million.
Washington’s jails have recorded some of the highest death rates in the nation in recent years, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. In addition to the human toll, those deaths add up financially too.
Washington cities and counties paid over $60 million to settle jail-related lawsuits in the past five years, KING 5 reported in March. Issaquah’s $5.5 million in jail death settlements outpaced many counties, including populous Pierce and Spokane.
Unlike prisons, which incarcerate people convicted of crimes in facilities overseen by the state, jails are largely operated by cities and counties and temporarily hold those accused of crimes for which the legal system presumes them innocent until proven guilty.
Washington jails logged over 131,000 bookings in 2022, according to a legislative report. Despite the compounding price tag of those facilities’ failures, bills to establish state oversight over jails have repeatedly failed to pass.
Lawsuits, however, have spurred changes, and even closed Washington jails in recent years.
“There is no governing body for people with complaints to go to for investigation — the recourse is bringing a lawsuit,” said Corinne Sebren, an attorney who has represented the families of multiple men who died in Washington jails.
“These people, these families, they don’t have another option.”
Reform efforts
Washington has no statewide standards for jails and no state body to oversee jail conditions. But it used to: From 1981 to 1987, the Washington State Corrections Standards Board inspected, collected data on and even had the authority to shut down deficient jails, according to a recent legislative task force report. But lawmakers eliminated the board in 1987, leaving cities and county jails to regulate themselves.
“The recommendation to terminate the Board was met with opposition from a range of stakeholders,” the report notes, “including [local law enforcement], jail administrators, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Department of Corrections.”
Washington only recently began tracking jail deaths, finding that 79 people have died since 2022, according to the state Department of Health.
State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, D-Seattle, has for the past two years introduced bills that would reestablish state oversight by creating a board to monitor jail conditions and investigate complaints. Both bills failed.
The Washington Association of Counties opposed Saldaña’s oversight bill, saying it would impose new costs on cash-strapped local governments. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs also opposed her bill, noting that it included just one jail official on the oversight board.
This past session, the estimated $9.2 million cost to establish the new board made it a nonstarter for budget writers facing a $16 billion deficit.
Jails have made some changes in response to lawsuits. Garfield County closed its jail and paid $2.5 million after the 2022 suicide of Kyle Lara, who was left undiscovered for 18 hours and served two meals after his death.
And Klickitat County last year wrested control of its jail from Sheriff Bob Songer and his appointed jail director, failed gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp. The county’s action followed a $2 million settlement paid to the family of Ivan Howtopat, an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation who died by suicide while in opioid withdrawal in 2023. The settlement included mandated audits and changes to staff training and medical care.
“I do think these lawsuits currently are the best drivers of change when it comes to jail health care and standards,” said Sebren, who represented both the Lara and Howtopat families.
Most civil litigation is settled for cash, but Sebren recommends her clients consider pushing for policy changes as part of their negotiation.
“Our clients come to us because they really are seeking justice for their families, for themselves,” Sebren said. “They really don’t want it to happen again.”
It happened again
Less than three months after Wiley’s death in June 2023, Issaquah police arrested 48-year-old David McGrath for the same charge — shoplifting. Like Wiley, McGrath appeared to be living on the streets.
Jail staff skipped booking because McGrath was “uncooperative” and seemed intoxicated, an investigator later noted. Investigative records show they put McGrath in an isolation cell where he spent the night.
The following morning, McGrath met with a jail nurse who described him as “irritable, agitated, and restless.” McGrath told the nurse he was a heavy drug and alcohol user and had used fentanyl the day before. The nurse decided McGrath needed a prescription drug, Librium, to treat his withdrawal. The jail did not have Librium, so the nurse advised jail staff to arrange for McGrath’s transport to Swedish hospital in Seattle to fill the prescription.
But two hours later, the jail guards on duty had not arranged transport, despite logging that they had checked on McGrath’s cell multiple times, the investigator’s timeline shows.
An inmate food worker knocked on McGrath’s cell door. McGrath, lying on his mattress, shook his head no, he did not want food. The food worker informed a jail guard that McGrath had appeared “sluggish.”
About an hour later, McGrath died. The medical examiner listed his cause of death as fentanyl intoxication, same as Wiley.
A lawyer representing McGrath’s estate later accused jail staff of negligence and “deliberate indifference” in a lawsuit filing. Issaquah City Council approved a $2.5 million settlement with McGrath’s estate during a Sept. 16, 2024 meeting.
The Council took its vote at 10:31 p.m., following a closed-door session. The vote was not included in an archived video of the meeting.
‘Math equation’
As jail deaths have continued to add up, so have financial payouts.
At least 11 people have died in the past two years at the South Correctional Entity or SCORE, a jail owned by cities in south King County, according to PubliCola. SCORE paid $2 million to the family of Damaris Rodriquez, a 43-year-old mother who died in custody in 2018 after her husband called seeking medical attention for a mental health crisis.
And details of those deaths are sometimes misreported, or not reported at all, despite a state law requiring counties to publicly post investigations.
Several months after Wiley and McGrath died in 2023, a 41-year old man with bipolar disorder experiencing a mental health crisis was tackled, pepper-sprayed, beaten and shackled face down by guards at Yakima County Jail, according to reporting from The Seattle Times. The County Coroner’s office initially ruled Hien Trung Hua’s death “natural,” but later changed it to “homicide” after the Times questioned their findings.
Hua’s mother has filed a lawsuit against the county and a tort claim for $50 million.
Three days after Kevin Wiley died, an email from a corrections officer arrived in the inbox of an Issaquah police consultant. The jail’s nurse had discovered the medical note, slipped under the cell door seeking help in his final hours.
“Need to see nurse about detox,” the note read.
Issaquah Mayor Mary Lou Pauly did not respond to an email asking if the city has improved medical care since the two men’s deaths. Through a spokesperson, she declined to be interviewed. Police Chief Paula Schwan also did not respond to an email asking about jail management.
Sebren, the attorney who won a settlement forcing changes in Klickitat County, said she thinks local officials have calculated that it’s cheaper to shell out for the inevitable death lawsuit than improve jail conditions.
“There is a math equation that it’s less expensive for [cities and counties] to defend these lawsuits than provide the right standard of care,” she said.
“We’re passionate about these cases because we want that math equation to change. We want the counties and the state and the risk pools to wake up and realize that it’s actually more risky.”
