The family of a man who died while in custody at Stateville Correctional Center during an early summer heat wave sued the Illinois Department of Corrections, a prison health care provider and several prison workers on Thursday, alleging that poor handling of Michael Broadway’s medical emergency led to his death.
“Michael helped countless people in the 51 years of his life, but when he needed help from the people who were entrusted to help him, whose job it was to help him, he was failed at every turn,” Terah Tollner, an attorney representing Broadway’s wife, Chunece Jones-Broadway, said at a news conference outside Stateville.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that the defendants violated Broadway’s Eighth Amendment rights — those covering cruel and unusual punishment — and asks for damages for wrongful death and the estate’s pain and suffering.
The state has acknowledged deplorable conditions at Stateville and plans are in motion to tear down that prison and Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison in downstate Lincoln, then rebuild both facilities on the Stateville campus near Joliet. The state Capital Development Board recently said it will soon seek proposals for two new mixed-security facilities of 1,500 single cells each, one for men and one for women.
Hundreds of inmates were transferred out of Stateville late this summer as part of a separate lawsuit alleging squalid and dangerous conditions throughout the prison.
In addition to IDOC, the defendants in the lawsuit over Broadway’s death include health contractor Wexford Health Sources, prison warden Charles Truitt, chief engineer Jermiagh Daly and about a dozen other correctional and medical staff members.
IDOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Wexford, Wendelyn Pekich, declined to comment.
The Will County coroner’s office earlier this year found that asthma and heat stress caused Broadway’s death, supporting the suspicions of Broadway’s friends and advocates that Stateville’s poor conditions were at least partially to blame. Outdoor temperatures on the June day he died reached about 100 degrees, and people incarcerated near Broadway estimated indoor temperatures as high as 115 to 120 degrees on his floor, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit outlines new allegations about the circumstances surrounding Broadway’s death, arguing it was “entirely preventable” if not for the slow and inadequate responses of workers.
For instance, it says correctional officers responding to calls that Broadway couldn’t breathe “stood by and simply watched Michael’s condition worsen” as other incarcerated men yelled and pleaded “for several minutes” that someone come help him.
A nurse responding to Broadway took several minutes to walk up five flights of stairs, and one inmate heard her say “This is stupid” as she ascended, the lawsuit alleges.
That same nurse, identified in the suit as Jen Doe, administered two doses of the overdose reversal drug naloxone, which did not help because Broadway had not ingested opioids, the suit said. Workers also brought up ice and attempted chest compressions, it said.
It was nearly an hour after Broadway first flagged that he needed help to when he was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, the lawsuit said, where he was soon declared dead.
The filing also repeats allegations prison advocates have made before, including that the windows to Broadway’s cell were nailed shut and a nearby fan was padlocked.
Broadway and a neighboring inmate, Anthony Ehlers, had at some point before Broadway’s death told the prison warden about these issues and the high temperatures, and Truitt assured them that the issues would get fixed, the lawsuit alleges. But “Truitt never took any meaningful action” to make the windows or fan usable, it said.
As Broadway’s condition worsened over several minutes after the unsuccessful use of naloxone, someone brought a stretcher that had no straps, further delaying treatment, the lawsuit said. Robert Cloutier, a friend of Broadway’s in a cell nearby, was released from his cell to carry Broadway with correctional officers down flights of stairs, using bedsheets, the suit said.
Cloutier “recalls that they passed the industrial fan — still padlocked and nonfunctional — while bringing Michael’s unconscious and unresponsive body down the stairs,” the lawsuit said.
Broadway was serving a 75-year prison sentence for a 2005 murder that court documents describe as a gang-related shooting. Jones-Broadway said her husband transferred to Stateville, a maximum security facility, for the programming opportunities. At the time of the death, he had graduated with a bachelor’s degree last year from Northwestern University’s Prison Education Program.
But he always said he feared dying in the prison, she said.
Terrell Vaughn, who said he grew up with Broadway, after the news conference Thursday said he felt like what happened to Broadway was “torture.”
“It’s like they just burned him,” Vaughn said, wiping his eyes.
Brian Broadway, Michael Broadway’s younger brother, said his brother and other inmates deserve to be treated with respect.
“No matter what the situation is and circumstances that people go through, they are still human beings and should be treated with some dignity,” he said.
Along with accountability for Broadway’s family, Tollner said she hopes IDOC and other defendants will make policy changes.
Federal lawsuit filed over death of Stateville inmate
