Courts Studying Paths That Took County Inmates to Their Deaths

John Franklin Wilcox, who had suffered mental illness for 40 years, was supposed to be in court one day last January so a judge could find somewhere for him to go besides the Orange County Jail.

Instead, a clerk routinely wrote in his records that day: “Defendant has passed away.”

But no one is treating his Jan. 17 death in the jail’s medical ward routinely any more.

Prosecutors now say Wilcox, 71, and another medical ward inmate, 25-year-old Arthur Oviedo, were killed by the same cell mate, Jerry Thomas Pick. Their deaths are also the focal point of a growing controversy over jail medical care to be aired in two different courtrooms this month.

U.S. District Judge James P. Gray, whose orders the past two years have reduced overcrowding at the jail, has begun to take a closer look at the medical care. He has ordered jail officials to give the American Civil Liberties Union the medical records of the last nine inmates who have died. Gray has scheduled a hearing for May 26.

And Monday morning, at a preliminary hearing for Pick in Central Municipal Court in the deaths of Wilcox and Oviedo, two doctors are scheduled to testify about their recent criticisms of Wilcox’s care in the jail.

The doctors, David Powers, chief of medical services at UC Irvine Medical Center, and Stanley van den Noort, former dean of UC Irvine’s Medical School, were part of a committee formed last month at the request of Sheriff Brad Gates to look into several jail deaths, including those of Wilcox and Oviedo.

In documents recently made public from the committee’s April 14 meeting, Powers is quoted as saying, “I strongly believe that the cause of death (of Wilcox) was encouraged by lack of care.”

Powers and van den Noort were then quoted together as saying that Wilcox “needed medical and mental care, care that had been compromised.”

Marshal Houts, who was chairman of the committee, said, “I’m not a doctor, but relying on what those doctors said, I think it’s clear that medical care at the jail is inadequate.”

Pick, 23, is charged with kicking Wilcox to death in a cell the two men shared on Jan. 17, 1987. He also is charged with strangling Oviedo on Jan. 31, 1987, when those two were cell mates. Traces of skin were found on Pick’s shoelaces, allegedly connecting him with Oviedo’s death.

Pick’s attorney, Milton C. Grimes, is calling the doctors to testify in an attempt to shift blame for Wilcox’s death from his client to jail officials.

But the testimony also could become a forum for a discussion about the jail’s medical care, which is operated by the county’s Health Services Agency, not the Sheriff’s Department.

County health officials have refused to discuss the jail deaths under investigation. But Frank Madrigal, medical director at the jail, said in a recent interview that the care has improved greatly in the past two years.

One attorney interested in the Pick hearing will be Dick Herman of the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought the jail issue before Gray in federal court.

“The bottom line is that Wilcox should never have been in the jail,” Herman said.

Actually, no one ever wanted Wilcox in jail. The problem facing the courts, the county’s probation office and the district attorney’s office was what to do with him.

Wilcox, who lived on Orange Avenue in Santa Ana, was arrested in 1984 after his wife called police and said he was firing a gun in his backyard. He then threatened police officers, who shot and wounded him.

Three psychiatrists hired by the court to examine him all stated that Wilcox had first been hospitalized for mental problems in the mid-1940s, and had returned to mental hospitals--usually the Veterans Administration Hospital in Long Beach--every few years for short stays. After the 1984 arrest, Wilcox agreed to seek outpatient therapy and to return to a VA hospital if his probation officer considered it necessary. He was placed on three years’ probation.

Appeared to Be Out of Control

But on Dec. 10, 1986, his troubles began again. His wife reported that he seemed to be losing control, was threatening his neighbors with violence and had thrown out all the food in the house, claiming the neighbors had poisoned it.

When Wilcox refused the probation officer’s order to go to a VA hospital, the officer had him arrested.

In court two days later, Superior Court Judge Francisco P. Briseno refused to release Wilcox from jail because of his threats of violence. Briseno did order the public defender’s office to try to find a place where Wilcox could get the attention he needed. He rescheduled a hearing for Jan. 22, 1987.

No one disputes that Wilcox was in poor condition when he came to jail. According to his medical records, he was on crutches from old leg injuries, complained of pain, and had emphysema and arthritis. A mental health specialist who saw Wilcox also noted that he was uncooperative and could not sleep because of bursitis pain.

He was kept in the general medical ward, where, on Dec. 31, he struck some inmates with his crutches. He was allowed to stay on the ward, but his crutches were removed except for mealtimes.

On Jan. 4, 1987, he was moved to a medical isolation cell because of “disruptive behavior.” One medical report states for that period: “He was seen as a potential danger to others.”

On Jan. 11, he reportedly smashed a razor and was listed by one nurse as “illogical and unpredictable.” Wilcox was seen by a jail psychiatrist the next day.

In the next three days he was reported as irritable and refused to take his medicine.

Talking Bothered Others

The day he died, he had been transferred out of his medical isolation cell because “he has been bothering others, they can’t sleep as he talks all night.” He was moved into a cell with Pick and another inmate, Richard Thomas.

Wilcox’s jail records show that at 11:45 a.m., Wilcox “insists he is dying from pneumonia because my (saliva) has turned yellow.”

When the nurse told him his health would improve if he stopped smoking, he yelled, “You know nothing.” He was then listed as “very argumentative and insulting.”

At 9 p.m., he was given more medicine. The next listing is at 11:15 p.m., when Pick called out to nurses that Wilcox appeared to be dead.

His records show seven requests by Wilcox for medical attention during his stay at the jail, the most serious coming two days before his death, when he complained of “extreme pain” in his lower back and requested a wheelchair.

While Wilcox’s medical records don’t reflect it, Pick admits kicking Wilcox the day he died after the two argued because Wilcox was spitting mucus over the jail cell.

The third inmate, Thomas, has also testified that he saw Pick kicking Wilcox.

Wilcox’s death was listed as being the result of natural causes. But two weeks later, on Jan. 31, Oviedo was found dead in a cell he shared with Pick. He had been strangled, and Pick was immediately a suspect. That caused prosecutors to reopen their Wilcox investigation.

Injuries Revealed

A second autopsy, by Dr. Robert Richards, a forensic pathologist on contract with the coroner’s office, showed Wilcox had been beaten about the ribs. Dr. Robert Lawrence of Stockton, who did the first autopsy, agreed in court that Richards’ autopsy had been more thorough, and he concurred that Wilcox had been beaten. Lawrence also said that Wilcox was a sick man who was going to die anyway.

But Grimes claims that a debate on medical care at the jail nevertheless is important.

Oviedo’s medical records show he had aggressive tendencies and was hyperactive. Grimes said that Pick’s records show he had a history of mental problems.

“The jail staff should have known better to put these two people in the same cell,” Grimes said. “You don’t put a match and gasoline in the same room.”

The district attorney’s office has cleared jail officials, both for the Sheriff’s Department and the county health agency, of any wrongdoing in the deaths of Wilcox and Oviedo.

Besides those two men, the other seven jail deaths covered in the federal court order include those of:

- Terry English, 31, who was sent to the UC Irvine Medical Center when he was found on the floor in the bathroom area of his cell, died Nov. 9, 1985.

- Patricia Fernandez, 57, who became ill during booking and died at UCI Medical Center on Dec. 25, 1985.

- Kenneth T. Micknak, 52, found unconscious in the jail drunk tank, who died at UCI Medical Center on Jan. 13, 1986.

- Thien Thanh Lam, 18, who hanged himself in his cell on June 21, 1986.

- Alvin Ray Swafford, 59, who died of an apparent heart attack at the James A. Musick Honor Farm on July 14, 1986.

- Jose A. Torres, 37, who became ill in the medical ward and died at UCI Medical Center on Aug. 10, 1986.

- Juan Ceja, 27, who hanged himself in his cell on March 8, 1987, and died at UCI Medical Center on March 14, 1987.

Times staff writer Mark Landsbaum contributed to this story.