The deaths of two men by suicide in Alaska prisons in the past year have prompted legal advocates to sue the state on their families’ behalf.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska filed its wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against the Department of Corrections seeking a financial settlement, as well as an independent investigation of deaths among people jailed in Alaska, which hit a record high in 2022.
“The state has a moral and a legal obligation to provide whatever care necessary to keep the thousands of people in Department of Corrections’ custody safe and healthy,” said Megan Edge, director of the ACLU of Alaska’s Prison Project. “And it became clear that they were failing to do so.”
The families of two jailed men who died – James Rider and Mark Cook Jr. – are included as plaintiffs in separate lawsuits, with the ACLU and law firm Friedman Rubin representing Rider’s family and private attorney Vance Sanders representing Cook’s.
In both cases, Edge said, DOC staff and procedures did not address the mental health issues either man was suffering from.
“They took two people in crisis who needed access to medical care and put them in solitary confinement. That is not medical care, that is torture,” she said.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Corrections said Friday that the department had not yet been served with the lawsuits and declined to comment.
According to the ACLU, 18 people died in DOC custody last year, the most ever in a single year.
RELATED: Families, activists question why so many people in Alaska’s jails and prisons have died this year
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which attorneys are representing the plaintiffs. The ACLU and law firm Friedman Rubin are representing Rider’s family, and private attorney Vance Sanders is representing Cook’s family.
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
