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An appeal is challenging the dismissal of all but one defendant in a lawsuit over a Scioto County jail overdose death
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — Three years ago, a man died after overdosing on fentanyl he got from a cellmate at the Scioto County Jail. His half-sister sued, claiming jail officers knew what was going on and failed to deliver aid soon enough.
The half-sister is now appealing a recent decision by a federal judge dismissing all but one of the defendants from the lawsuit.
The judge said there was no persuasive evidence to support the claim that these defendants acted with deliberate indifference to Cory Cantrell’s medical emergency.
Cantrell had already overdosed three times during his stay at the jail for a probation violation in early 2022. Two of those times, jail officers administered Narcan, a drug that reverses the effects of an overdose, and saved his life.
He was then moved from his regular cell to a holding cell in the jail’s booking area to make it easier to monitor him.
“But the booking area also comes with a downside—inmates housed there are consistently exposed to new arrivals to the Jail. And some of those new arrivals smuggle contraband,” U.S. District Judge Douglas Cole wrote in his decision.
In this case, a new arrival to the holding cell managed to smuggle in some fentanyl that went undetected during an initial frisk search, an X-ray scan and a strip search, all part of the usual booking procedure, the judge said.
Cantrell bought some of the fentanyl and snorted it. What happened next is disputed and is central to the case.
According to the lawsuit filed by Jessie Cantrell, Cory began hitting his cellmates and falling down. At one point, Christopher Boggs, a corrections officer, opened the door to the cell and asked Cory if he was messed up and whether he was OK.
Boggs disputes this.
What the jail log book shows is officers checked the cell at 8:55 p.m. and then at 10:01 p.m.
Video footage of the jail’s booking area does not show an officer performing a check at 10:01 p.m., the judge noted. What happened before then cannot be verified because video footage from before 10 p.m. that night was deleted.
This time, Narcan was not administered
Boggs said that at 10:02 p.m., one minute after the check recorded in the log book, inmates in the cell began beating on the door.
Several officers rushed to the cell. Officers said they found Cantrell on the floor with fluid coming out of his nose and mouth and his skin pale and blue.
Boggs, who had worked as a paramedic, checked for a pulse and found none. He then got a defibrillator as other officers removed Cantrell from the cell and took turns performing CPR to restart his heart.
Officers continued applying CPR until paramedics arrived.
“But there was one action the officers did not take. They did not administer Narcan to Cory, even though they had it on hand,” the judge notes in his decision.
“Each officer provides their own reason for why they did not administer Narcan, although it basically boils down to this: it was hectic, and they were trying other methods to save him,” the judge wrote.
The paramedics also did not administer Narcan and instead gave Cantrell medications used to treat cardiac arrest.
Jessie Cantrell disputes that Cory was in cardiac arrest and lacked a pulse when pulled from the cell. She contends he should have been given Narcan.
Her medical expert acknowledges there was no guarantee Cory would have survived if given Narcan, the judge notes. Fluid coming from his nose would inhibit its effectiveness. But the expert says it should have been tried anyway.
Jessie Cantrell argues in her lawsuit that the jail officers were deliberately indifferent to Cory’s medical needs in violation of his civil rights.
She says jail officers were aware that something was wrong with Cory well before they entered the cell at 10:02 p.m., and were aware of his history of overdoses, but did not take action until it was too late.
One of the challenges Jessie Cantrell faces in proving her case is video footage of the booking area before 10 p.m. that night was deleted. She argues this is evidence of a cover-up.
The judge said there are legal arguments Jessie Cantrell could have made to try to make the case the jail should have preserved the video. But she didn’t make them.
Case remains against one officer
The judge also took issue with the claim that failure to administer Narcan to Cantrell is further evidence of the officers’ indifference. He said there is a difference between deliberate indifference to medical needs and negligence in treatment.
Officers thought Cantrell was in cardiac arrest without a pulse and were treating him for that condition, the judge wrote. “Even if they were wrong, that smacks at most of negligence,” not a violation of his civil rights, the judge wrote.
Without video footage of what happened before officers entered the cell, there’s no evidence most of the officers were aware, or close enough to the cell to be made aware, that Cantrell was in trouble long before then, the judge wrote.
So he dismissed all the officers from the lawsuit, except for Boggs.
During an investigation after the incident, inmates who were in the holding cell that night said that at one point Boggs came into the cell and checked on Cantrell, who at this point would have been in the clutch of his overdose.
The cellmates said Cantrell told Boggs he was OK. Assuming Boggs did check in on Cantrell, which Boggs denies, and Cantrell said he was fine, this doesn’t mean Boggs shouldn’t have done more, the judge said.
“Cory’s self-assessment to Boggs matters little,” the judge wrote. “To offer an obvious example: if an officer discovered an inmate with blood gushing from their wrists (in a suicide attempt) and asked whether the inmate was okay, to which the inmate responded in the affirmative, that would not relieve the officer of their duty to act. The question is whether Cory’s condition was obvious enough and whether Boggs observed that obvious condition. And that’s a question for the jury.”
But the remaining case against Boggs will not be going to a jury anytime soon.
The case is on hold while Jessie Cantrell’s appeal of the judge’s decision to dismiss the other defendants it taken up by the appellate court. It could be months bofore the appeal is resolved.