County Liable for Injuries to Woman Inmate

San Diego County is liable for injuries a female inmate at Las Colinas jail received during a suicide attempt because she did not receive adequate medical care for her self-inflicted injuries, a Superior Court jury decided Monday.

After two days deliberating, the jury handed down a series of verdicts that firmly blamed the county for Keon Ja Lee’s injuries, which have left her in a vegetative state.

Lee’s family is seeking $25 million in damages from the county, according to court documents, but the verdict Monday only assigned liability for the actions. The jury was ordered back to court Tuesday to begin deciding whether Lee’s family will be awarded damages.

Lee, who is now 39, tried to hang herself in the Santee jail on Jan. 30, 1989. She was in custody on suspicion of stabbing her 11-year-old son with a kitchen knife at home in Rancho Penasquitos.

During her brief stay in jail before the suicide attempt, doctors determined that Lee was mentally ill. Against a doctor’s recommendation that she be kept under guard at the UC San Diego Medical Center, she was returned to Las Colinas.

The suicide attempt led to a lawsuit and to a one-month trial before Judge Michael I. Greer. The jury found Monday that Lee’s civil rights were violated because women inmates were not provided the same mental health care as men.

Inmates at the women’s Las Colinas Jail were provided mental health care only during the day, while men in custody at facilities such as the downtown San Diego Jail had access to care 24 hours a day, the jury found.

But, the jury ruled, the county, its medical practitioners and several officials, including former Sheriff John Duffy, did not act “deliberately indifferent to (Lee’s) serious medical needs,” apparently finding there was no intent to harm her.