Judge Holds Federal Bureau of Prisons in Contempt for Allowing Man To Waste Away From Untreated Cancer
A federal judge wrote that the Bureau of Prisons should be "deeply ashamed" of medical delays that resulted in a man dying from treatable cancer.
In a scathing opinion, a federal judge held the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in civil contempt and levied sanctions against the agency last week for allowing an incarcerated man to waste away from untreated cancer, as well as for willfully ignoring and misleading the court.
U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton for the Middle District of Florida wrote that the BOP should be "deeply ashamed" of how it treated the now-deceased inmate Frederick Bardell. Its actions, he said, were "inconsistent with the moral values of a civilized society and unworthy of the Department of Justice of the United States of America."
Bardell was convicted in 2012 of downloading child pornography from a peer-to-peer file sharing website and sentenced to 151 months in federal prison. But he was not sentenced to death by medical neglect, and he was ostensibly protected by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, as are all incarcerated people, no matter how heinous their crimes. That includes the right to basic health care behind bars.
Nevertheless, the BOP allowed a highly treatable colon cancer to progress until Bardell was terminally ill, all while insisting in court that there was no evidence he had cancer and that he was receiving appropriate, timely care.
In addition to holding the BOP and Kristi Zook, the warden of Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution, in contempt, Dalton ordered the BOP to pay Bardell's parents nearly $500 to reimburse them the airline ticket they purchased to get their dying son home. Dalton also requested that the attorney general and the Office of Inspector General for the Justice Department investigate the circumstances of Bardell's death.
"It takes a deeply rotten culture to make otherwise decent people act as these prison officials did," Kevin Ring, president of the criminal justice advocacy group FAMM, says. "The BOP is in desperate need of independent oversight."
Medical neglect in U.S. prisons and jails is an ongoing constitutional disaster. Earlier this year, federal judges also held the Arizona and Illinois prison systems in contempt for failing to address gruesome medical neglect within their walls. The infamous Rikers Island jail complex in New York City is also under threat of being put in receivership by a federal judge because of chronic corruption, violence, and preventable deaths.
Reason also reported in 2020 on several allegations of fatal medical neglect inside FCI Aliceville, a federal women's prison in Alabama.
Earlier this month, bipartisan legislation was introduced in both the House and Senate that would create an independent ombudsman to act as a BOP watchdog. Criminal justice advocacy groups say Bardell's case is exactly the sort of incident that makes such a position necessary.
Bardell filed a motion for compassionate release—a process through which terminally ill inmates can be afforded the comfort of returning home for their last days—in November of 2020, arguing that he likely had advanced colon cancer. An affidavit from a doctor accompanying his motion said he had "a high likelihood of having cancer of the colon with likely metastasis to the liver."
The BOP and federal prosecutors, in their opposition to Bardell's motion, argued that while Bardell had liver lesions, no one had determined his condition was life-threatening; they assured the judge that Bardell was receiving adequate medical treatment. Dalton denied Bardell's motion.
Bardell filed a second motion for compassionate release in February of 2021, this time with an affidavit from an oncologist. The oncologist wrote that a more than year-long delay in getting Bardell a colonoscopy after he first noticed rectal bleeding "allowed this tumor to progress from a stage III with an average cure rate of 71 percent in November 2019 to a stage IV disease in September 2020."
That delay, the doctor stated, would, "more likely than not, cost Mr. Bardell his life in a matter of weeks to months."
The government again opposed Bardell's motion, arguing, as Dalton summarized it in his opinion, "that it was not even definitive that Mr. Bardell had cancer—let alone terminal cancer."
This time, a disgusted Judge Dalton ordered the BOP to free Bardella as soon as the U.S. Probation Office crafted a proper release plan for him. But the Bureau of Prisons defied Dalton's order and instead immediately released Bardell. The prison directed Bardell's parents to pay nearly $500 for an airline ticket to fly their dying son back home on a commercial flight.
Although he had to be pushed out of prison in a wheelchair, a BOP van dropped Bardell off on a curb outside the Dallas/Fort Worth airport without a wheelchair and left him there. Bardell was weak, as well as bleeding and soiling himself, but he managed to navigate the airports, layovers, and connecting flights through the help of good Samaritans. When he arrived back in Florida to meet his parents, "his father had to take off his own shirt and put it on the seat of [Bardell's lawyer's] car to absorb the blood and feces," Dalton's opinion says.
Bardell died in the hospital nine days later. Pictures accompanying Dalton's order show Bardell severely emaciated.
Dalton's opinion is worth quoting at length:
While the sanctions imposed are remedial in nature and restricted by law, the Court admonishes the BOP and Warden Zook for their blatant violation of a Court Order and sheer disregard for human dignity. The BOP as an institution and Warden Zook as an individual should be deeply ashamed of the circumstances surrounding the last stages of Mr. Bardell's incarceration and indeed his life. No individual who is incarcerated by order of the Court should be stripped of his right to simple human dignity as a consequence. The purposes of incarceration, which include rehabilitation, deterrence, and punishment, do not include depriving a human being of the fundamental right to a life with some semblance of dignity. The treatment Mr. Bardell received in the last days of his life is inconsistent with the moral values of a civilized society and unworthy of the Department of Justice of the United States of America….
The Court is hopeful that in some small way, these proceedings will illuminate the BOP's arrogant—and wholly mistaken—notion that it is beyond reproach and the reach of the Court. It is not. If any institution should embody respect for the Rule of Law, it is an agency that operates under the aegis of the Department of Justice. This Court will do everything in its power to ensure that the BOP is held to account for its demonstrated contempt for the safety and dignity of the human lives in its care.
The BOP did not respond to a request for comment.
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Couldn’t find an example where people might actually feel sorry for the guy?
Great point. Principles don’t matter. Judge the person and then decide. It’s what you do, right? I’m surprised you’re not wondering how the guy voted and discussing if he deserved to suffer based upon which team he was on.
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Prisons break all libertarian principles. Bitch all you want about “injustice”, but the reality is that people won’t care.
Prisons break all libertarian principles.
How so? No sarc. I’m genuinely curious.
Because by necessity, they abridge the rights of prisoners. Just as they abridged the same if their victims. We, as a society, want them punished. Unavoidably, that means a further abridgment.
I’m not into punishment. I’m into justice. Unfortunately the two are often treated as synonyms.
Yes, you are into what Sowell calls “cosmic justice”: an unattainable objective that ends up destroying society.
I’m neither into punishment nor cosmic justice, I’m into liberty. In a free society, the consequence of committing a serious crime is that you are expelled from society, lose the benefits society grants its members, and become an outlaw. It’s effectively a death sentence.
Prison is generally a kinder option. Think of it not as locking people in, but locking them out of society.
More precisely, punishment is only one of five generally-accepted objectives of a functioning criminal justice system. By fixating only on punishment and ignoring the other four, you harm society as a whole.
To the larger point, punishment does not “break all libertarian principles” merely by abridging the rights of prisoners. Libertarianism is not the same as anarchy.
Because by necessity, they abridge the rights of prisoners.
Most of the “rights” that you ascribe to prisoners aren’t actually “rights” in a libertarian society.
In a truly libertarian society, if you commit a serious crime, like murder or rape, you would effectively be expelled from society; you would become an outlaw, unable to enjoy any of the protections or institutions that other people rely on. It’s effectively a death sentence.
Prisons and penitentiaries (root word being “penance”) were about repenting and seeing how one had done wrong to man and God (I use a capital “G” to refer to the Christian god that they imaginatively named “God”) as opposed to paying a debt to the wronged person or to society.
There’s a real conversation to be had here.
Or do you want to just toss out snide remarks to gain status with your clan?
Most people neither care about whether criminals repent, nor whether they “pay a debt”. Most people simply don’t want to have serious criminals living near them or interact with them.
The libertarian solution to serious crime is to expel people who violate the rules and laws of a community from that community and to withdraw all protection and benefits.
Yep. Nobody wants to have a conversation beyond “I’m scoring points for my team look at me!”
Nobody wants to talk to you.
How many points did you score with that one?
Quit trolling and fuck off, Sarcasmic.
I know you don’t want to talk with me because you’ve never added anything productive to any conversation in your entire life, so you throw snipes at people who are smarter than you to make yourself feel better.
That’s literally what you’re doing here. You posted your favorite troll, a strawman argument about partisan teams (the guy was in jail for being a pedo, not a Democrat, and Dlam said nothing about politics) and then promptly started sniping at everyone who responded from atop your phony high horse.
And once enough people tell you to fuck off you’re going to start crying about being bullied.
No wonder nobody wants to talk to you. You’re a dishonest piece of shit.
Really? How do you think libertarian societies deal with serious criminal acts?
No beast is so fierce but it knows some touch of pity. I am no beast and therefore know none.
I would have Kristi Zook and her grisly minions subject to the same treatment that Frederick Bardell received not because I “feel bad” for Bardell. I don’t; if he had suffered as he did, as many people do, by the natural action of cancer and the inherent limitations of medical science, I would shrug. Karma and all.
But this was not natural causes, this was the actions and neglect of evil, powerful people and I want to live in a world where evil people are punished and removed from positions of power.
I hope the same thing happens to you.
I mean it’s not like he walked around the capitol
Amd still no Reason articles about the indefinite detention of unconvicted J6 protesters. While prisons treating prisoners in this fashion is wrong, it’s total bullshit that Reason isn’t covering that, at all.
Ooh, “don’t do it again” and pay $500. That’ll be a deterrent…
A man being legally prevented from having a clump of cells removed, even to save his life, was a foreseeable consequences of overturning Roe.
The important question is: Was he vaxxed?
Before I can decide if this ruling against a Federal agency was correct I not, I need to know which party is currently elected to run the Federal government. Democrats? Oh, in that case, evil evil Federal agency! This would never have happened under Trump!
Oh wait, this actually happened during the Trump administration. Evil evil judge for overruling the Will of the Peeple!
It’s all about the color of the tribal banner. People’s Front of Judea.
You kidding? The politics of the prisoner are what matter. If he was on the other team then he didn’t suffer enough. If he was on your team then the prison employees have lightening bolt insignias on their stylish uniforms.
“Other Team”
The other team being non-pedophiles? GO TEAM!
Looks like Brandybuck’s channeling Sarcasmic’s strawman schtick. Give us an example of someone actually doing that here, Brandy.
I’ve got an idea. Let’s take a general statement personally and then make personal attacks on the ones saying it to invalidate what they said. A majority of the folks who comment on this site will see that as a logical argument from facts and reason.
I’ve got an idea. Stop trolling with phony accusations about everyone else here. And that goes for you too, Brandybuck.
Fucking clowns.
Not surprised you found a way to drag Trump into this.
Prisons are holes. If you get sick in one, so much the better, because you are there to be punished.
I am familiar with a case of a woman, in jail for a drug offense, who had appendicitis but the jail was so slow in responding that she was mortally septic by the time she got access to care.
We don’t even consider rehabilitating the incarcerated [not that every person convicted is a candidate]. Just throw you in jail for as long as the system says and then toss you out, with the expectation of doing it all over again. Keeps the system running.
Most people couldn’t care less about whether prisoners are punished or not. Most people just don’t want serious criminals anywhere near them.
We used to have exile, the death penalty, and outlaw status to remove people we didn’t want to associate with from our communities. None of those are feasible anymore in the 21st century, which leaves creating special places called “prisons”, where we house people we don’t want to associate with anymore.
……..and nothing else happened.
Wonderful. So no *person* is held accountable – so why would any *person* care to change things?
I can’t wait for the follow up story on whether or not they actually pay up, or ignore this order too.
Oh, wait. Reason; no follow ups allowed, the truth might get out.
No! Not the sternly-worded letter! The horror.
“otherwise decent people”?
Decent people don’t run prisons.
Still, it’s amusing that you feel American citizens aren’t entitled to health care except when they are criminals. If he wasn’t, he could die the same way and nary a concern.
Yeah, once he’s in custody he does become dependent on the state, but it’s a weird dichotomy.
(@jeremyR – Your politics are showing..)
Your last sentence is your answer, so not really weird… no different than parents, no?
..
And since he was also unable to use his own doctors and any medical insurance or cash pay on his own (such as get released from prison to go see his own doctor when he needs/wants) seems the prison is on the hook)
..
I am assuming by your comment that you are beating that ‘universal medical care via uncle sam option’ (if not, stop reading)- if so, how can you read this article and think its a good idea – This is literally the example of govt run organizations where you are not the customer and will get whatever shit service they fancy that day…
The dichotomy is not weird at all. When you intentionally prevent someone from caring for themselves, you become responsible for their care.
The prison could have avoided liability for his care if they’d had some sort of ‘release for medical treatment’ program. They didn’t. (In fairness, there are many reasons why a ‘release for medical treatment’ program would be a really bad idea. That doesn’t change the underlying ethical obligation.)
No, he was literally prevented from receiving treatment through outright fraud. The guy was scum, but the government shouldn’t hav ethics kind of power. Especially while democrats exist.
This has parallels to the Charlie Gard case in The UK. Their NHS not only refused to treat this child. They physically prevented and took legal action to prevent the parents from having their child treated by outside doctors.
No, in the Charlie Gard case the courts had to step in to stop understandably distraught parents from abusing their child in a futile attempt to prevent the unpreventable. The same decision would have been reached in the US.
I’m curious about this one. How much of this is just a socialized medicine style issue?
See my comment above referencing Charlie Gard.
Ooh. $500 and extra homework. That’ll straighten them out.
I stopped reading at the headline. “Deeply” is one of those leftist code words. See also “lived experience,” “speaking his/her (now it’s their) truth,” “black bodies,” “white spaces,” and most of all, “structural.”
“Systemic.”
True.
False.
The BOP appears to have lied in its submissions to the court regarding the prisoner’s condition. Why are the authors of these submissions not subject to prosecution for criminal contempt?
Or perjury? I think a lot of what is wrong with things in the US could be solved by a clampdown on perjury by government officials. Someone signed statements that were false, under penalty of perjury. They need to be jailed.
The other side of the story is that the BOP is not given a budget to care for terminally ill patients or those with complex medical needs. So they just waste away inside a prison. Medical Insurance does not cover or navigate the federal prison system. When an inmate arrives they are officially under the medical system of the federal prison system – a system vastly different than on the outside. Since most everything changes in a person’s life, the same insurance contract and patients’s rights is no longer valide when in prison and coverage is stopped or paused when an inmate is incarcerated for longer than a year. This plus a budget that is nowhere near high enough to provide something like the advanced care required to save the life of a dying cancer patient is why the guy died. It’s not the BOP fault and sure enough the judge failed to understand that which is why there is a law that restricts the judge from holding employees personally responsible. They are simply operating according to what the government has mandated.
They are breaking the law, and your argument regarding funding is absurd.