Parents settle Department of Corrections suit over prison suicide of their son

The parents of a 23-year-old man who killed himself in 2012 at a now-closed state prison in Cambria County have settled a lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for $675,000.

“This, hopefully, will bring some closure to our clients,” said attorney Bret Grote. “Obviously, no amount of money can compensate the [family].

“Within the context of what you can get in a legal suit, which is monetary accountability and precedent that can help prevent other families from having to experience what they did, this accomplishes those goals.”

Brandon Palakovic was found hanging in his cell in the Restricted Housing Unit — solitary confinement — at the State Correctional Institution at Cresson on July 16, 2012. He died the next day.

His parents, Renee and Darian Palakovic, filed a federal lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections, several administrators and mental health officials in July 2014 alleging discrimination, deliberate indifference and wrongful death. They now live in Tennessee.

They alleged that the repeated use of solitary confinement on Palakovic, combined with his mental illness, was a violation of his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

Palakovic, who was serving a 16- to 48-month prison sentence for burglary, was in and out of solitary confinement repeatedly during his incarceration at Cresson. He was convicted in Perry County.

He had been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder as a child and spent much of his teen years in and out of juvenile detention facilities and boot camp programs.

When he was placed at SCI Cresson, medical staff put him on the anti-depressant, Celexa.

Palakovic hated how it made him feel, and would fight with staff about taking it.

Those fights would lead to him being placed on the Restricted Housing Unit, in a cell by himself, for 30 days at a time.

Palakovic asked for mental health counseling, and told fellow inmates and staff that he had suicidal thoughts. Still, he was returned repeatedly to solitary.

The lawsuit was initially thrown out by U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson in Johnstown, who found that the Palakovics had to establish that their son had a “particular vulnerability to suicide,” and that officers in the prison had acted with reckless indifference to that vulnerability.

Gibson said the plaintiffs failed to meet those requirements.

However, in an important, precedential opinion, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Gibson, finding that Palakovic had attempted to kill himself multiple times, told prison officials he had been thinking about harming himself and had a nickname of “Suicide.”

“If we were to conclude that Brandon’s circumstances were insufficient to allege a ‘particular vulnerability to suicide,’ it is difficult to imagine how any plaintiff could ever succeed in doing so,” the court wrote in its 2017 opinion.

Grote called the Third Circuit decision an important precedent. “

“At the core, this precedent will help thousands of people being held in the conditions they kept Brandon.”

“That was particularly meaningful.”

SCI-Cresson was closed in June 2013, shortly after the release of a Department of Justice report that was highly critical of the prison and its treatment of mentally ill inmates. Three people committed suicide at Cresson between 2010 and 2012.

Specifically, the DOJ report found that prison officials’ long-term use of solitary confinement violated the men’s rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

It noted that more than 70% of all Pennsylvania prison suicides between Jan. 1, 2012, and May 31, 2013, occurred in solitary confinement.

Maria Bivens, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said she could not comment on the settlement.

However, she said that suicide prevention is a priority across the system and is in a continuing state of review and improvement, including at individual institutions.

Recently, the DOC expanded its pre-service and annual in-service suicide prevent training for every new and existing employees, as well as a new suicide risk assessment tool, with training on its use and implementation for psychology staff, and documentation within the department’s electronic health record.

“The department remains committed to ensuring our correctional settings are as safe as possible, not only for DOC staff but for those individuals currently incarcerated,” Bivens said.