Imka Pope, Woman Who Gave Birth In Jail, Wins $975K

SEATTLE -- A woman has won $975,000 in a federal jury trial, 14 years after giving birth in a jail cell in Washington state.

A jury agreed Friday on nine of 10 counts in Imka Pope's civil rights case against King County. Pope says jail nurses and corrections officers violated her civil rights in 1997 by dismissing her claims that she was pregnant.

She had been arrested for sleeping on a bench at a Metro bus stop. In the lawsuit she filed in 2007, Pope said jail health officials locked her in a cell and ignored her for six days. She got help after a guard heard a baby crying.

Her mental illness has delayed the case. It went to trial once previously, but at that time Pope was involuntarily committed to Harborview Medical Center.

A call to the King County prosecutor's office seeking comment on the case was not immediately returned late Friday afternoon.

Comments

[freewayhighway]

01:39 PM on 02/08/2012

prison officials need to learn people are not throwaways and they need to be upheld to the same standards society is bound by. WHAT is horrible in this case is this mentally challenged woman (or so the article says) should have had medical care as she told them she was pregnant. she and the newborn could have died. now the sick part of this will be how much the lawyers are going to take as their cut. hope she gets the helps she needs.

[Carys Germany]

05:41 PM on 02/07/2012

any claim of pregnancy should have been verified by law enforcement. her rights were clearly violated. hopefully the money goes to the children.

[Dan Crabtree]

01:34 AM on 02/07/2012

Another rich democrat lawyer..he gets the lions share she will of course be pregnant again and of course pull the same stunt once again creating a never ending cycle of being a victim taken advantage of buy the man,.there is no end with these people...

[JAGBrown]

11:39 AM on 02/08/2012

It's amazing that you arrived at such an educated conclusion based on the paucity of information from the article. Please do your research, Mr. Crabtree.

[summer261987]

12:15 AM on 02/07/2012

a little bit lost here... is it true that they can keep you in jail for sleeping on a bench at a Metro bus stop?? @@

[pezdrake]

05:21 PM on 02/12/2012

Right? That was the real issue here. She shouldn't have been in jail in the first place.

[summer261987]

07:58 PM on 02/12/2012

yes!! her crime was so minor that i can't really understand why they kept her for... inappropriate use of power? :P

[jal6641]

03:45 PM on 02/06/2012

How awful!!! She deserves a lot more than that!

[todayla09]

12:42 PM on 02/06/2012

What kind of name is "Imka Pope"?

[CerealMom]

12:12 PM on 02/06/2012

If she is not right in the head why doesn't someone do something to prevent her from giving birth to yet MORE motherless,and possibly impaired children? I am just disgusted that she got all this money for doing what comes natural to her,but our elderly go without heat and medication.

[jal6641]

03:48 PM on 02/06/2012

Are you willing to have your taxes raised, so we can open up more free clinics? I am! People like this don't have access to health care, and they are woefully ignorant.

[Dan Crabtree]

01:29 AM on 02/07/2012

and you will pay for the next one million people exactly like this woman how much money do you have?..for liberal victims is like a raging river they never stop.

[FWJames123]

10:30 AM on 02/06/2012

This is a badly written article as usual. She was (and still is) severely mentally challenged. The police did wrong by her but she was ignored for 23 hours while in lock down...not six days. Totally wrong on their parts obviously but not what huff chose to write. All of her babies have been removed from her care. This one had a heart condition and neurological problems.

The poor woman is mentally ill. I hope the funds are carefully protected to provide her with better care.

[bettestreep]

11:25 PM on 02/05/2012

She deserved a heck more than the $975K she got.

and I'm guessing the jail will appeal the verdict and/or send her a bill for her incarceration and the top notch health care she got whilst inside.

[topkatnc]

09:04 AM on 02/06/2012

She sures does deserve more .. 975 is a drop in a bucket for being ignored while having a baby , for six days .

[Kevin Walters]

10:23 AM on 02/07/2012

bettestreep: and I'm guessing the jail will appeal the verdict and/or send her a bill for her incarcerat­ion and the top notch health care she got whilst inside.

Locked down for 6 days, ignored the information that she was pregnant, baby born with unnecessary "birth defects"? Perhaps they should pay this one and see that the money is set aside for the care and education of her childern.

[bettestreep]

01:28 PM on 02/07/2012

Totally agree.

It'd be a nice gesture if the authorities just let this one pass and allow the woman and her baby to get on with their lives.
Sadly - money trumps morality all the time and I am sure they will appeal because that money should rightly go in the backpockets of the CEO and board members of the prison.

[vcrozas]

04:38 PM on 02/05/2012

Lord knows this woman needed someone to help her and what was done to her was wrong. BUT another thought I have is what attorney pursued this, worked around this womans mental illness and made themselves a huge settlement? My thought is she will need supervision and assistance in caring for herself and this money...wonder if the same attorney will further line their pockets helping her? Hope she can become well enough to find some happiness.

[boyoboy]

08:21 PM on 02/05/2012

Yes, the attorney will get her share.  If the Ms. Pope collects public assistance, though, she'll probably have to exhaust her award before she can get assistance.  Most states have very strict rules about what recipients can earn and how much they can own in assets.  Cash on hand (in a bank account) is considered an asset.

[lexigram]

02:24 AM on 02/06/2012

If I had hundreds of thousands of dollars, the last thing on my mind would be qualifying for my food stamps and puny check from DSHS. Good for you, lady. I hope you have someone you can trust to help you with this award.

[RobH413]

01:05 AM on 02/06/2012

Looks like a lawyer agreed to take a case on a contingent fee, probably a case she could find no one else to take. Apparently that lawyer worked on her case for about five years, taking the case to a full civil jury trial, which is massively, massively time consuming. The lawyer was no doubt unable to accept many other cases during the more intense phases of the litigation. Since the case went to trial, there is little doubt that the state/county attorney were taking the position that there was no civil rights violation at all, and if they were successful in that argument, the lawyer would have received nothing. Depending on the size of the law firm, the lawyer might have been taking a huge risk in accepting or litigating this case.

$975,000 sounds like a lot of money. But even with a lawyer fee of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the lawyer probably took a loss on this case, compared to what she would have earned working based on hourly rates. Lawyers who work on contingent fees enable people who have been the victims of injustice to have quality legal representation even if they have no money. My guess is the verdict is much lower than the lawyer was hoping for and is considered a victory for the county.

[simzillyjp]

03:22 PM on 02/05/2012

As you can see.....the Police do NOT respect people....inmate or NOT.

[unique]

02:03 PM on 02/05/2012

When you go to jail, the medical department usually
does a pregnancy test on the female inmates urine.

[vcrozas]

04:39 PM on 02/05/2012

Look how many years ago it was.

[unique]

09:16 PM on 02/05/2012

I would have thought they had pregnance test 14 years ago. But this nice lady deserves every penny for the treatment she received.

[njinone]

08:43 PM on 02/06/2012

have you been to jail?

[unique]

09:03 PM on 02/06/2012

Yes, I work in a jail.

[vlynnieg]

01:46 PM on 02/05/2012

Could the same officer(s) not have found a homeless shelter for the woman? Seems like a better solution than jail.

[vcrozas]

04:39 PM on 02/05/2012

In all probability she was mentally ill and needed much more than a homeless shelter.

[vlynnieg]

06:25 PM on 02/05/2012

That's true, she probably did/does. However, most shelters have access to places that can help people with these kinds of problems.

[vlynnieg]

01:45 PM on 02/05/2012

I wish there was more information in this article. What kind of assessment was done for them to dismiss her claim that she was pregnant? How on earth could she be 'ignored' for six days? Surely someone would have had to feed her?!? How frightening that must have been for her and thank goodness she didn't have any complications! So many potetial complications come to mind: breech, dystocia, preeclampsia (or worse: eclampsia), postpartum hemorrhage, fever, sepsis. The list goes on. I'm assuming she breastfed, or the baby would have been in dire shape by the time they realized she delivered. What did she tie off the cord with? So many questions, so little info in the article.

[DovS]

03:03 AM on 02/06/2012

When she says they ignored her for six days, I think she means that they ignored her claims that she was pregnant and needed medical assistance.

[vlynnieg]

09:38 PM on 02/06/2012

One would hope, but how could they have missed live childbirth, because it sounded as though she had been delivered by the time they realized. I've had patients on epidural make enough noise to rattle the roof (thank goodness that's the exception, not hte norm!), much less without any pain meds. What if she had bad lacerations and needed repair? Just so many things about this make me feel really bad. I mentioned this article to a couple of OB's that I deliver with and they thought so, too.

[Progressneeded]

12:43 PM on 02/05/2012

That is what happens when jail is a for profit corporation. The less they do for the inmates the more profit they get!

[RobH413]

01:08 AM on 02/06/2012

Doubtful that this was a private jail. This is what happens when people work in a jail culture that treats people as less than human. It's also what happens when people get lazy and burned out.