TACOMA — A federal jury needed only one hour Thursday to reach consensus clearing Jefferson County and Jail Superintendent Steve Richmond of a multimillion-dollar civil suit involving a former inmate and his amputated finger.
Both sides in the suit over the amputation of the Port Townsend man’s pinkie finger from a rare infection that lingered while he was in jail, sat in a quiet and tense courtroom just before the verdict was read by presiding U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton.
Plaintiff Zachary Barbee’s attorneys, Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge, attempted to prove throughout the three-week trial that Richmond acted with deliberate indifference in denying medical care to Barbee during his 3½-day stay in the jail in fall 2004.
“The bottom line was they didn’t prove what they had to prove,” said 41-year-old juror Derick Huber of Olympia.
The foreman of the eight-person jury, 58-year-old Richard Read of Olympia, said he thought perhaps Barbee deserved compensation for what he’s gone through, but the level at which Barbee’s attorneys had to prove fault by Richmond and the county was extremely high.
“Collectively, we just couldn’t see that the plaintiff’s case met that level under the law,” said Read.
“But there were some on the jury who certainly had some issues with how Richmond conducted business in the jail.”
After the decision was read, Leighton said he appreciated the job done by the plaintiff’s side and that he respects “people who are willing to get in the trenches’ to argue a case like this.
Throughout the three-week trial, defense attorneys Mike Patterson and Charles Leitch maintained that the plaintiffs were arguing not just the Barbee case but also a 2002 American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit against Jefferson County for denial of an inmate’s medical needs.
The ACLU suit was settled in 2003 with the county paying about $80,000.
At the time of that lawsuit, the jail was run by a different superintendent under a different sheriff.
“The jury obviously saw that the new administration under [Sheriff Mike] Brasfield and Richmond is a new era,” said Patterson.
