Jonathan Magbie, a 27-year-old quadriplegic from Maryland, died in a Washington hospital on 24 September 2004, four days into a ten-day jail sentence for marijuana possession.[1][2][3] Paralysed from the neck down since the age of four, he used a mouth-operated wheelchair and needed a ventilator to breathe at night and about twenty hours of nursing care a day.[2][3]
D.C. police had arrested Magbie in April 2003 after stopping his cousin’s car and finding a gun and marijuana in his pockets; he had no criminal record.[2] He pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana, and on 20 September 2004 D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin sentenced him to ten days in jail even though prosecutors had recommended probation, saying he had told investigators he would keep smoking marijuana to ease his pain.[2][3]
In custody his medical care came from a private contractor, and over four days he was moved between the D.C. Jail, Greater Southeast Community Hospital and the Correctional Treatment Facility, none of which had a ventilator available for him.[1][2] His family’s lawsuit said he went without treatment for acute pneumonia and without enough food, water or fluids.[3] On 24 September, unobserved by medical staff, he suffered a respiratory crisis; paramedics found him unresponsive, the trip back to hospital was delayed about half an hour by paperwork and a blood-sugar test, and he died that night of oxygen failure from a displaced tracheotomy tube.[2]
The District paid his estate $1 million in April 2007 and changed how the jail handles prisoners with disabilities; combined settlements with the District, the hospital and the contractors totalled $4.6 million in the suit Scott v. District of Columbia.[2]
