Tarrant County will pay $750,000 to the family of mentally ill woman who died in jail
Tarrant County has agreed to pay $750,000 to the family of a mentally ill woman who died in the jail in 2021, the family’s lawyer announced Friday.
Georgia Baldwin died on Sept. 14, 2021, after jailers found her unresponsive in her cell at Lon Evans Corrections Center in downtown Fort Worth. She was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. She had been in jail for five months.
Baldwin’s family hope the judgment will bring about change in the Tarrant County jail and others in Texas, according to attorney Dean Malone, whose office announced the judgment in a press release.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled she died of severe hypernatremia, which is a high level of sodium in the blood usually attributed to dehydration. The medical examiner, however, said that the cause of the condition was undetermined.
The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment, stating that the department is still investigating Baldwin’s case.
A statement from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office said “the parties have agreed to settle this matter, but the settlement papers have not been finalized yet.”
Baldwin suffered from severe mental illness, according to lawyers for the family. She had been arrested after leaving threatening voicemails for Christopher Cook, who at the time was an Arlington police lieutenant.
Cook, now the police chief in White Settlement, referred the Star-Telegram to the Arlington Police Department.
Arlington police spokesperson Tim Ciesco declined to comment on the litigation.
Malone argued that Baldwin’s mental health issues were apparent from the beginning, and should have been taken into account in the response by law enforcement.
“It was clear from her voicemail messages that she had significant mental health issues,” the lawyer’s press release states. “Regardless, she was arrested and incarcerated in the Tarrant County jail for a lengthy period of time.”
The voicemails she left Cook concerned the unsolved case of Amber Hagerman, an Arlington girl whose 1996 abduction and murder spurred the creation of the Amber Alert System, according to KERA News.
Baldwin continued to show signs of mental illness and an incapacity to comprehend her situation, her family said.
A judge ordered in July 2021 that she be transferred to a state mental health facility to undergo a process called competency restoration, by which she would be returned to a mental state in which she could understand the charges against her. But the transfer was never made. Wait lists for competency restoration are generally very long and can take months or longer for an inmate to be moved to mental health facilities.
Malone called it “unfortunate” that the case took this long to come to a close. The $750,000 was “inadequate,” he said, but added that he hopes it will inspire change in the Tarrant County jail and others in Texas.
Baldwin’s son, Jonathan Mattix, who was a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement conveyed through his lawyers that the case was “an incredibly difficult journey for my family.”
“While the judgment provides some closure, our greatest hope is that my mother’s death inspires changes in the system, so no other family has to endure this kind of loss,” he said.
This story was originally published September 27, 2024 at 5:12 PM.
