When grief becomes rage

Sandy Ray's fight for accountability in her son's prison beating death

Sandy Ray (left & right photos), her late son Steven (middle photo)

Five years ago, Sandy Ray and her family buried her son. Steven Davis. Stevie, as she called him, was 35 when he was beaten to death by correctional officers inside Alabama’s William E. Donaldson Prison.

In a case that garnered national attention, the state of Alabama recently settled a wrongful death civil lawsuit Sandy filed to hold the state accountable in her son’s death. Attorney General Steve Marshall decided to not press criminal charges against the officers involved.

I published a story in the Alabama Reflector about the settlement and it’s also running on AL.com. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll check out this reporting.

The reasons I decided to write about this settlement are many. Sandy’s courage in confronting a system that refuses to self-correct, the unchecked power and spending connected to litigation involving the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), and the opaque process happening on our dime. If I had not filed public records requests to track spending on lawsuit settlements, the settlement amount and lawsuit conclusion would likely never come to light.

Sandy Ray confronting former ADOC Commissioner Jefferson Dunn at a prison oversight meeting.

I’m also interested in examining what the state says publicly vs. what happens quietly, behind closed doors. Alabama has never admitted any wrongdoing in Steven’s death, never even apologized to Sandy, and yet still paid a $250,000 settlement to end the wrongful death lawsuit in his case.

The Attorney General and ADOC have held the line, publicly stating that the “use-of-force” against Steven was justified because officers felt threatened. Neither agency responded to my requests for comment on why the lawsuit settled. Why pay a large settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit if there was no wrongdoing? They had no answer.

Steven Davis’s death certificate showed he died by homicide caused by blunt force injuries of head sustained in an assault.

Civil litigation has become a backstop for prison oversight and accountability. Reading through these lawsuits reveals trends across the system, and some repeat offenders. I’ve also been studying the avalanche of public money going to private attorneys hired to defend ADOC employees.

While the Alabama Department of Corrections vigorously denies findings by the U.S. Department of Justice that officers routinely subject prisoners to excessive force, the spreadsheets tell a different story, that ADOC has quietly settled a record number of excessive force lawsuits in recent years. Look for more reporting from me on all this before the end of the year.

I am glad Sandy finally received something from the state in the aftermath of Steven’s violent death, but she’d gladly give it all back to hug Stevie again. Sandy no longer lives in Alabama, and when I reached her by phone to talk about the conclusion of her lawsuit, she sounded tired, and told me she is still sad and angry.

“If they hadn’t killed him, I wonder if he’d be here right now helping me,” she said. “I wonder if he’d have kids. What they took from me will never go away.”