A Florida inmate wants to describe prison brutality. Why won’t Miami-Dade jail let him?
Miami-Dade County jail officials are preventing Demetrius McCutchen — a Florida prisoner who says he can reveal details of inmate abuse and mistreatment at state Department of Corrections facilities — from sitting down with Miami Herald reporters for an interview.
McCutchen, 50, was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder by a Miami-Dade judge in 1985. He was 15 at the time of the crime. After about five years in prison as a teenager, McCutchen spent his 20s and 30s in close management and confinement, two forms of isolation known for especially harsh conditions.
In those decades of isolation, McCutchen said he personally witnessed the worst of Florida’s prison system, including frequent inmate beatings. At times, McCutchen said, medical staff were complicit in the physical abuse, including at a troubled Panhandle prison’s mental health dorm that was the subject of a Florida Times-Union investigation earlier this year.
McCutchen was transferred from Florida’s prison system to a Miami-Dade jail in October so he could attend court hearings as he seeks a potential re-sentencing available to offenders tried when they were juveniles. But Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Department officials refused to let reporters visit the jail to interview him, citing a “security threat and classification concerns.” They would not explain their reasoning in detail, nor would they immediately provide the jail’s policy on media visits for inmates.
David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, said court rulings have made clear that prisoners must be allowed to communicate with the media.
“We expect those who run our prisons and jails to take security into account,” Fathi said. “But unfortunately, some prison and jail officials use ‘security’ as a blanket justification for avoiding outside scrutiny and silencing criticism.”
From jail, McCutchen was able to reach a Miami Herald reporter by phone. The first words out of his mouth were: “Finally, I got through to you.” McCutchen said an officer named in the Times-Union article routinely beat inmates. He also said that nurses working for the facility but employed by private contractor Centurion participated in cover-ups of the abuse.
Michelle Glady, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections, said that the agency’s Office of Inspector General is still investigating allegations of misconduct reported in the Times-Union article in May.
McCutchen said he has suffered abuse by officers, including at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution, the subject of the Times-Union article.
Last year, after an argument with a nurse in the mental health dorm, McCutchen said he later was “jumped” by officers who broke his ribs and damaged internal organs. McCutchen, who admitted to throwing feces at the officers when they arrived at his cell and attempting to stab one officer in what he described as self-defense, said he lost consciousness during the October beating.
Prison officials confirmed that McCutchen was involved in a “use of force” at that time but said the officers were cleared of any wrongdoing.
In the hospital, McCutchen said, he woke up to find one of the officers who beat him in the room “standing there looking at me.”
The Herald sought to interview McCutchen in person at Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center rather than talk on the phone.
In-person interviews at correctional facilities are preferred to phone interviews by reporters because they provide more privacy from staff. Jail calls are recorded and monitored and cost the inmates money. Telephone providers for correctional facilities have come under scrutiny for security and privacy problems in recent years, as well as price gouging. The Herald and other media outlets have for years routinely visited inmates in South Florida jails.
Reporters first requested an interview with McCutchen on Nov 5. The inmate signed a form stating he wanted to be interviewed.
It took Miami-Dade’s corrections department until Nov. 25 to deny the request. The denial followed repeated attempts by reporters and an attorney representing the Herald to get an answer.
In a brief memo provided to the Herald on Nov. 26, Daniel Junior, the county jail system’s director, wrote that “inmate Demetrius McCutchen is classified as a Max 2, and is currently housed within the Mental Health Treatment Center at TGK.”
The memo stated no explicit reason for the denial.
However, it did note that McCutchen’s public defender “recommended against the approval of the media access [but] deferred to Inmate McCutchen’s decision.” McCutchen had already said he wished for the interview to take place and accused jail staff of trying to silence him. The First Amendment allows inmates to speak to media with or without the approval of their attorneys.
Juan Diasgranados, the jail’s spokesman, said he had no comment on why the interview request was denied. The Herald put in a public records request for the jail’s policy on media interviews but has yet to receive it.
Myriam Márquez, spokeswoman for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, declined to comment. The mayor’s office oversees county jails.
McCutchen pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Merline Gail Daugherty, a 42-year-old saleswoman, in southwest Miami during a robbery on Jan. 26, 1985. He was sentenced to life in prison.
A 17-year-old driving a getaway car was also convicted.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Lourdes Simon is overseeing McCutchen’s case and may decide to reduce his sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court has found it is unconstitutional to sentence minors to life in prison without considering how their youth and upbringing may have contributed to their crimes.
“Children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing,” the court found in Miller v. Alabama.
When he was in state custody, McCutchen said he faced roadblocks in communicating with the outside world, especially reporters. Censorship is a common complaint among Florida prisoners and their loved ones.
McCutchen managed to successfully send a letter granting permission for a media interview, but he later told a reporter that envelope contained two pieces of paper: one granting permission to be interviewed and another with damning information on the prison system, including the names of other prisoners who had been beaten by officers at Santa Rosa.
The reporter received only the letter granting permission for the interview. There was no other piece of paper in the envelope. Prison staff read and screen inmate mail.
The Florida Department of Corrections said it would inform its Office of Inspector General about the piece of paper McCutchen says was missing..
McCutchen said the abuse he has witnessed extends beyond Santa Rosa. He said high-ranking officers at various facilities coordinate to keep inmates silent.
“They send you from one place to the next and destroy your property,” McCutchen said.
Spending much of his adult life in isolation has left McCutchen in “inner agony,” said his friend Ian Manuel, who said he got to know McCutchen well during their time spent together at various Florida prisons.
“Being kept in solitary confinement for nearly 25 years has taken a tremendous toll on him in every way imaginable,” Manuel, who is no longer in prison, told the Herald.
Manuel said McCutchen “found innovative ways to cause self-injury to himself” in prison, including stabbing himself to get sent to the hospital, a brief respite from the “everyday intensity of solitary confinement.”
“However, as absurd as that may seem to someone who hasn’t lived under such duress, he is far from insane,” Manuel said. “He is similar to [me]: just in an incredible amount of inner agony. And utilizing the remedies he’s learned to relieve the tension, if only momentarily.”
The Times-Union investigation into misconduct at Santa Rosa CI revealed allegations of physical abuse, starvation and an inmate suicide. It also detailed allegations of security staff racially harassing mental health staff.
The report was based on interviews with about a dozen former and current employees at the facility, as well as inmate interviews and prison documents. At the Panhandle facility, employees said, officers would routinely serve inmates “ghost trays” containing ruined meals or no food at all, to punish or retaliate against inmates.
“The Florida Department of Corrections and leadership at Santa Rosa C.I. have zero tolerance for staff who act inappropriately and in contrary to our core values,” Glady, the FDC spokeswoman, said in an email. “The Office of Inspector General, along with the leadership at Santa Rosa C.I., have a track record of ensuring that any individuals involved in misconduct are held fully accountable.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2019 at 7:00 AM.
