Her baby dead, inmate now in mental hospital after giving birth in Tarrant County Jail
A baby born unattended inside a Tarrant County Jail cell in May died 10 days after she was born.
The baby was taken directly to the hospital from the Tarrant County Jail after her birth on May 17, said Jennifer Gabbert, Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman. Gabbert did not release information regarding the infant’s condition after leaving the jail.
The infant’s mother was sentenced to four years deferred adjudication probation after she pleaded guilty to the charge of causing serious bodily injury to a child and was released from jail on Dec. 17, court records show. The mother was arrested in January after she was accused of an assault, court documents show.
The mother was placed under mental health supervision and was in protective custody in the Tarrant County Jail’s infirmary, records show. After she gave birth, the mother and her newborn were taken to the hospital. The mother was returned to jail after her hospital stay in May.
The assault charge was dismissed by the court on June 18 at the discretion of the prosecutor, according to court records.
The baby’s mother is now at a mental health hospital, according to Mamie Bush Johnson, the attorney who represented the infant’s mother. According to Johnson, the baby and mother were were unattended during the birth and for an undetermined length of time afterward.
“She is out of jail and her family is getting her the help she needs,” Johnson said.
Officials with Child Protective Services said their agency never took legal custody of the child and declined to release details about a report received concerning the infant’s case. The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office said it did not have custody of the child once she left the jail.
An investigation by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by members of the Tarrant County jail staff related to the unattended birth. A jail commission official did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether labor and delivery occurred during the 30-minute window when jail staff made visual checks or whether signs of labor may have been missed.
Diana Claitor, spokesperson for the Texas Jail Project, a jail reform advocacy organization, said she questions why this mentally disabled woman was in jail at all and was not hospitalized.
“In the past, we have seen multiple incidents where jailers did not believe and did not respond to the complaints of women in labor,” Claitor said . “We fear that’s what happened to this woman in the Tarrant County Jail. But when a woman who has an emotional or mental disability and is pregnant is kept in a single or solitary cell, extra precautions and monitoring should occur.”
Around the same time frame as the birth, the Tarrant County Jail lost its state certification for six days because three jail checks on the mental health pod were delayed and linked to an inmate suicide on April 26.
The certification was re-instated after officials submitted a plan of corrective action.
The family of the man who died by suicide asserted law enforcement officials knew of his mental issues long before he was taken to jail and said that he should have been taken to a mental health facility or monitored more closely.
Mentally fragile
On June 12, the infant’s mother was found incompetent to stand trial and ordered into a jail-based competency restoration program after a psychiatric evaluation.
The order was rescinded on June 18, based on the significant deterioration of the mother’s mental condition, according to court documents. The infant’s mother was immediately ordered into treatment at a state mental health hospital and then ordered to return to Tarrant County after the completion of a four-month treatment period.
The jail standards commission is attempting to address training deficiencies related to mentally fragile inmates, according to its 2019 self-evaluation report.
The report says an estimated 30% of the inmate population is either diagnosed or exhibiting signs of mental illness. The result is that county jails have become mental hospitals, and jailers have become social workers. Neither the facilities nor the staff that operate them are properly equipped to handle this continuing issue, and no long‐term solution is in sight, the report said.
