EXPERTS: DEATH ILLUSTRATES JAIL DEFICIENCIES

Prosecutors Say Negligent Jailer Denied Man Medical Attention

MURPHY, N.C. - Lee Wood was locked up in the Cherokee County Jail last
summer on charges of possessing marijuana and stolen goods. He ended up
dead on the jailhouse floor in less than a week.

Prosecutors say a criminally negligent jailer denied the 26-year-old
diabetic the insulin he needed to live. After five days, relatives say, Mr.
Wood's tongue was swollen out of his mouth and he begged a fellow inmate
for a can of soda, desperate for sugar. When he collapsed, he weighed just
100 pounds.

Experts say the inattention that led to Mr. Wood's death is all too common
in jails across the nation.

Stephen Ingley, head of the American Jail Association, said most jails are
understaffed and underfunded, from rural facilities such as the one in
Cherokee County to the biggest urban jails.

While billions have been spent building prisons, the local lockup often
gets ignored, Mr. Ingley said.

"If the county needs a new school and needs a new jail, and they go out on
a bond issue, who's going to win?" Mr. Ingley asked.

Jails are on the front lines of the criminal justice system, coping with
inmates straight off the streets, often with serious mental or physical
problems. A typical 1,000-bed prison has 500 annual admissions, Mr. Ingley
said, while a jail of the same size will admit 22,500.

The problem hit home last year in western North Carolina. Four months
before Mr. Wood's death on Sept. 5, eight inmates were killed when fire
swept through the Mitchell County jail. Seven of the inmates were trapped
in a second-floor holding cell.

The county has agreed to pay $2 million to families of the victims, and the
state still faces lawsuits. State labor officials concluded that inspectors
for the county and state repeatedly failed to detect safety violations at
the jail.

"In part, it's a financial problem," said David Whelan, a criminal justice
professor at Western Carolina University, which will host a regional jail
safety summit Thursday.

"But it's also a problem of having proper understanding of liability and
proper understanding of management and planning," he said. "I think that
there have to be guidelines that are followed for all these emergencies
that have happened."

Mr. Wood had been in and out of trouble since his teenage years. His
father, Jimmy Wood, said his son had served six months for selling
marijuana and another six months for beating up a man he caught in bed with
his wife.

Lee Wood went into jail for the last time on Aug. 31.

His father said he didn't hurry to bail out his son because he was afraid
he would get back together with a troublesome girlfriend who landed him there.

Jimmy Wood and his wife, Marylin, said they called the jail daily from
their home outside Andrews to make sure their son was getting his insulin
shots. Each day, jailer Judy Mason told them he was.

On Sept. 4, another inmate called the family to say Lee Wood was sick and
needed help. The Woods said they spent much of the next day trying to get
medical attention for their son.

The head of the county emergency medical service asked Ms. Mason to
transport Lee Wood to a hospital. On Sept. 5, a district judge issued an
order that Mr. Wood be transferred to the state corrections department for
safekeeping.

Mr. Wood died before that order was carried out.

"I can't picture how they didn't give my son his medicine and let him lay
there on the floor and die," Jimmy Wood said.

Sheriff Alan Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of waiting
17 days to report Lee Wood's death to the state. A judge sentenced Sheriff
Kilpatrick to 24 hours of community service and $500 in fines.

Ms. Mason, meanwhile, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and failing
to provide medical care in Mr. Wood's death. Her attorney, Jerry Townsend,
declined to comment.