HOW (AND WHY) DID JONATHAN MAGBIE DIE?

With important national and local elections on Tuesday, and with a
city in turmoil over baseball stadium financing, why return for a
fourth consecutive week to the case of Jonathan Magbie, the
27-year-old quadriplegic who was sentenced by Superior Court Judge
Judith Retchin to 10 days in the D.C. jail for simple possession of
marijuana? After all, Magbie's dead and buried. Why keep his story
alive?

Maybe it's because Jonathan Magbie didn't die the way so many other
men of his age and race meet death in the nation's capital: by being
gunned down or stabbed in the streets. He didn't lose his life in a
house fire or an automobile accident, although it was a car crash at
age 4 that left Magbie paralyzed from the neck down, unable to breathe
on his own sometimes, and dependent on others for the rest of his life.

On Sept. 20 a judge took Jonathan Magbie away from the people who
cared for him and placed him in the hands of the D.C. government. When
he died on Sept. 24, Jonathan Magbie was this city's captive under
lock and key, unable to fend for himself or live as he wished.

How and why did he die? That question, at least to me, is every bit as
important as the outcome in the battleground states on Tuesday. A
human being entrusted to our government lost his life. He was
arrested, prosecuted and restrained from freedom in our name. Did we
the people, through our government, contribute in any way to his
death? The performance of this city's criminal justice system is no
less important than that of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment
Commission, on which Mayor Anthony Williams and other city officials
lavish such rapt attention.

And so the late Jonathan Magbie still tops my agenda. So does the
mystery of his death.

Will we ever know?

Last week Chief Judge Rufus King III of the D.C. Superior Court
pledged to "determine what went wrong" in Magbie's case ["Judge King
Responds," letters, Oct. 22]. But when asked if the judge would make
public his findings after meetings with Corrections Department
officials about the jail's capacity to handle different medical
conditions, Superior Court spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz said in an
e-mail: "The Chief Judge will make any changes in Superior Court
practice and procedure that are found necessary to assist the jail in
assessing and treating those committed to its custody." Apparently
it's going to take more than a prying journalist to find out what the
court did or failed to do with regard to Jonathan Magbie.

But answers are needed.

Why did Judge Retchin not take action when Malek Malekghasemi,
associate medical director of the Correctional Treatment Facility
(CTF), where Magbie was housed, called Judge Retchin's law clerk on
the day after his sentencing to say that Magbie should not be in jail,
given the nature of the sentence and his overall medical condition?
Did the court have a responsibility to act after receiving information
from a competent medical authority, especially information that
contradicted her earlier understanding of the jail's ability to
accommodate Magbie?

Who advised Judge Retchin's law clerk that the jail could accommodate,
as a court official described Magbie, "a paralyzed wheelchair-bound
defendant"? The Corrections Department sent me this statement on
Thursday: "For the record, the Department of Corrections (DOC) had no
conversation with anyone from the Superior Court regarding the housing
of a person confined to a wheelchair prior to the sentencing of Mr.
Magbie. The DOC was not aware of Mr. Magbie, or his condition, prior to
his arrival at the Central Detention Facility [D.C. jail], following
his sentencing in Superior Court, on September 20, 2004. However, the
judges of the U.S. District Court and the Superior Court, and their
staffs, routinely communicate with the DOC through the DOC's General
Counsel's Office."

So who gave Judge Retchin assurances, which she stated in open court,
that the jail could accommodate Magbie's needs? Was Judge Retchin ever
advised that Magbie needed a ventilator at night to breathe? The
Corrections Department maintains that it does not provide ventilator
services in any of its facilities, and would have said so if asked. A
review of all court transcripts related to Magbie will, of course,
settle that question. But will that happen?

Did the Corrections Department provide the appropriate level of care
needed for Magbie while he was at the CTF? The department maintains
that it did. But department staff members learned from Magbie -- after
he began experiencing breathing problems on his first night in
incarceration and before he was transported by ambulance to Greater
Southeast Community Hospital -- that he used a ventilator at night to
assist his breathing when he slept. Yet for three nights at the CTF,
he was never supplied with one or sent to a facility where a
ventilator was available. The Corrections Department says it followed
oral and written instructions from Greater Southeast's medical staff
for Magbie's care, namely, to provide him with nasal oxygen as needed.
Did the hospital provide appropriate instructions, given Magbie's
medical condition? Did the Corrections Department take into account
the concerns of its associate medical director?

Who will answer these questions?

The D.C. Health Department's investigation into Magbie's death,
started Sept. 28, was completed on Oct. 22, according to Philippa
Mezile of the department's communications staff. A report is expected
next week. Mezile said that after a review by physician Robert Vowels,
senior deputy director for D.C. environmental health administration,
and the department's general counsel, the report will be made public,
subject to further review by the city's attorney general (formerly the
corporation counsel). The investigation included interviews with
hospital and jail staff members and a review of hospital and jail
records, Mezile said.

Did investigators also interview other inmates housed in the CTF
infirmary with Magbie, I asked? No, Mezile said, because the Health
Department lacks regulatory authority over the Corrections Department
except for environmental and sanitation issues. Suppose, she was
asked, that there are inmates with stories to tell about Magbie's
treatment, as Magbie's family has heard; shouldn't authorities want to
know? The question remains unanswered.

Five weeks later, we do not know how and why Magbie
died.

On Tuesday, I asked Beverly Fields, chief of staff to the city's chief
medical examiner, about Magbie's cause of death. "It's pending,"
Fields said. "Pending what?" I asked. "Just pending," she said.