Ruth
An employee at the Madison County Jail has submitted an affidavit in support of dismissing a suit brought against Madison County Sheriff Robert Hertz and his department over psychiatric care that a prisoner claims he was denied.
Lt. Robert Hollenbeck submitted the affidavit in support of the sheriff's department's move to dismiss the 2011 complaint filed by plaintiff Hubert Hill.
Hollenbeck is not named as a defendant in the complaint but is referenced as such in a subsequent affidavit filed by the plaintiff.
Hill is seeking damages in excess of $50,000, a court order mandating he receive proper psychiatric treatment, and an order forbidding Dr. Robert Blankenship, another defendant in the suit, from practicing psychiatry.
An April hearing on the motion to dismiss was pushed off by Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis Ruth.
Hill claims that the sheriff's department denied him proper care for his bi-polar disorder deliberately and that Blankenship changed his medications that had kept the illness in check.
Hill also alleges his 14th Amendment rights were violated by the defendants.
The defendants have moved to dismiss Hill's suit.
In Hollenbeck's affidavit, he states that Blankenship and nurse Bobbie Unfried were employed properly in the jail's infirmary.
Hollenbeck states that he is familiar with the regulations regarding prisoner mail and that on Jan. 8, 2011 he alerted jail officers that Unfried and Blankenship were given sealed envelopes by Hill.
Hollenbeck states he then went on to inspect the envelopes and he decided they did not qualify as legal mail and he unsealed them.
One of Hill's claims against the defendants is that he attempted to mail motions for entry of default judgment and default judgment to them but that Hollenbeck gave the mail back to him despite warning that the mailings were legal documents.
Hill represents himself in the case.
He also represented himself in a 2008 law suit against his former attorney Morgan Scroggins.
In that suit, Hill claimed Scroggins refused to talk to him and to aid in his defense.
Heidi Eckert represents the defendants.
The case is Madison case number 11-L-027.