Inmate to Sue in Baby's Death

Courtsey of Hattiesbuurg American/April 25, 2007
By Royce Armstrong
Greene County Jail officials refused to provide medical care to a pregnant inmate who went into labor, costing her baby her life, according to court documents.
Lucedale attorney Malcolm N. Murphy said he expects to file a lawsuit in Greene County Chancery Court on Friday on behalf of Amber Miller and her deceased newborn daughter, Kayla Danielle Miller. The lawsuit, which represents only one side of a legal issue, seeks at least $1 million in damages.
"I can prove everything in our claim," Murphy said Tuesday. "We will win this suit."
Greene County Sheriff Stanley McLeod was out of his office and did not return a phone call regarding this case. Greene County Board of Supervisors President L.F. Lambert also could not be reached for comment.
Amber Miller, now 26 and serving a five-year sentence in state prison for uttering forgery, was a prisoner in the Greene County Jail on Dec. 26, 2005. She was in her second trimester of pregnancy when her water broke. She was not given any medications or instructions on how to protect herself, according to court documents.
Over the course of several days Miller repeatedly asked for medical help, but was denied by jailers and deputies.
Here are circumstances according to the notice of claim, which was filed in November by Murphy to notify county officials that a lawsuit was forthcoming:
At approximately 8 p.m. on Jan. 4, 2006, Miller felt pain while playing cards with two other female inmates. Miller and the other inmates asked jail personnel for medical help. Instead, the document claims, the dispatchers on duty, Melba Bradley and Perle Rose Smith, threatened to spray Miller with Mace if she did not stop screaming.
Jail personnel were told that the baby was being born and that it was a breech birth. According to the court document, the jail personnel directed that Miller be positioned so male prisoners in a cell across the hall could "see what a woman had to endure while birthing a baby," according to Murphy.
In an effort to get medical help for Miller, one of the other female inmates, Brandy Mills, attempted to call Miller's grandmother. Dispatcher Melba Bradley turned off the telephone, the court document claims.
A male prisoner did manage to make a call for medical help from the telephone in the men's cell block, Murphy said.
Miller and her partially born baby were taken to the Greene County Hospital and the attending physician finished delivering the baby just before midnight. By this time, the baby was dead.
Miller was returned to the Greene County Jail the next day.
The baby's body was turned over to the state medical examiner's office by Greene County Coroner Clyde Gilley.