[Mb-civic] Justice for a 'Death of Neglect' - Colbert I. King - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Justice for a 'Death of Neglect'

By Colbert I. King
Saturday, September 17, 2005; Page A21

Next Tuesday marks the first anniversary of 27-year-old Jonathan 
Magbie's final encounter with the D.C. government. It will be no cause 
for celebration.

It was on Sept. 20, 2004, that D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Retchin 
sentenced Magbie, a quadriplegic since an accident at age 4, to 10 days 
in the D.C. jail. His crime? Possession of marijuana.

Five days after falling into the hands of the D.C. government, Magbie 
was dead. He died a horrible death. It was preventable. But nobody in 
the system cared.

Looking down from her bench, Retchin saw a first-time offender. He 
controlled his wheelchair with a mouth-operated device. He could breathe 
only with a battery-controlled pulmonary pacemaker. At night he needed 
the assistance of a respirator. He could have been sentenced to home 
detention, where he would have had round-the-clock attention. Instead, 
Retchin, apparently upset when Magbie refused to swear off weed, which 
helped him get through a miserable existence, sent him to that 
taxpayer-supported hellhole near the Anacostia River known as the D.C. jail.

What happened to Magbie at the jail and at Greater Southeast Community 
Hospital, where his life ended five days later, shouldn't happen to a 
dog. In fact, it doesn't happen to dogs and cats in the custody of 
decent and caring people. But Magbie had no one in his corner except his 
mother, Mary Scott, and she could not join him in jail. In the 
intervening 12 months, the continuum of players responsible for Magbie's 
last days on Earth has never had it so good.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/16/AR2005091602168.html
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