Waupun Correctional Institution (Image from the state’s website)
An inmate classified as among the most severely mentally ill killed himself in solitary confinement at a Wisconsin state prison after officials failed to provide adequate mental health care and medications, the man’s daughter alleges in a federal lawsuit filed this week.
Dean Henry Hoffmann, 60, died in June at Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI), a beleaguered facility with chronic inadequate staffing and inmate overcrowding, more than an hour northwest of Milwaukee.
“Every day I fight for some type of change within the system, and I’m hoping that this really drives that home, and something like this — holding them accountable — will lead to change,” Megan Hoffmann Kolb told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Prison officials declined to comment, citing a policy against commenting on pending litigation, the newspaper reported.
Court documents obtained by Law&Crime outline the events leading up to Hoffmann’s suicide after he was sentenced last February to 28 years in prison after his conviction for assaulting his ex-girlfriend.
Hoffmann had a history of mental illness that included bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and anti-social personality disorder, court documents said.
Before his trial, he had been deemed by mental health professionals and the court as being mentally ill but competent to stand trial, even though there was strenuous disagreement, the lawsuit said. In custody, he was categorized as “MH-2A,” the most severe category of mental illness, court documents said.
On April 10, Hoffmann was transferred to WCI with about 30 days of medication. When he went in, the facility had been locked down for safety reasons after some inmates had broken prison rules, court documents said. Because of lockdown restrictions, Hoffmann was never given a psychological exam and had received only some of his prescribed medications, the lawsuit alleges. He had only been able to use the phone twice in the first weeks. Guards unplugged the phone on him mid-conversation in one call.
He asked for medical treatment and showed serious symptoms of mental illness, including severe anxiety, paranoia, pressured speech, poor judgment, poor insight, loss of appetite, weight loss and insomnia, court documents said.
His frustrations mounted on June 20, when he refused to return to his cell after showering, citing “fear of his safety because of threats his cellmate made to him,” the lawsuit said.
When guards ordered him into his cell, he refused. He was handcuffed and escorted into the prison’s Restricted Housing Unit for “a minor incident despite Mr. Hoffmann expressing concerns for his safety.”
While in solitary, Hoffmann began to rapidly deteriorate mentally and physically.
On June 24, a nurse observed Hoffmann in his solitary cell, but it was only a visual check. There was no report he had had a psychological exam. Prison records showed he had not been administered medications consistently. A prison log showed that some medication distribution was marked as “refused” even though it may or may not have ever been offered, the lawsuit alleges. Nighttime medications were being offered in the morning, court documents said.
Then Hoffmann began “hearing voices” and “couldn’t sleep,” court documents said an inmate reported. When Hoffmann informed staff the voices told him to kill himself, an officer charged with monitoring him reportedly told him, “‘he didn’t care,’ or words to that effect, if Mr. Hoffmann were to kill himself,” court documents said.
There was no record of Hoffmann ever receiving psychological services while he was in solitary, even though officials noted in a report about his refusal to go back into his cell on June 20 as creating “a risk of serious disruption at the facility or community” and checked a box for “Psychological services input for serious mentally ill inmate.”
Hoffmann was discovered cold and pale in his cell at 6:45 a.m. on June 29. The lawsuit said he was cut down, restrained, laid on the floor, and given chest compressions. Guards called 911 seven minutes after discovering him. He was declared dead at 7:25 a.m.
Photos from his cell show his last meal — a partially eaten bagged dinner given to him at 4:22 the previous evening. His garbage hadn’t been picked up.
Three days after Hoffmann’s death, the prison’s psychological associate wrote a report regarding her June 26 interaction with Hoffmann, court documents said.
The prison — Wisconsin’s oldest — is the subject of a class-action lawsuit over “cruel and unusual conditions of confinement” during the monthslong lockdown in a case that was also filed by Kalb’s attorney, The Wisconsin Examiner reported.
The Hoffmann lawsuit said that even though the prison had a written policy requiring visual supervision of inmates in solitary confinement, officers were often distracted and even sleeping at their posts.
“There was a general lack of empathy and callous mistreatment by WCI correctional officers toward inmates with mental illness, which included mocking them and referring to them by demeaning nicknames,” court documents said. “There was a pervasive attitude of indifference by correctional officers and mental health staff toward inmates. Rather than provide necessary mental health care, staff often dismissed problems by saying, ‘That’s just what he does.’
“Based on defendants’ actions, Mr. Hoffmann suffered cruel and unusual punishment by unnecessarily suffering mental health issues that resulted in suicide.”
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