Court: Lawsuit can go forward
The legal battle brought on by chaplain Gail Hanson against Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio is not over.
A federal judge earlier this year rejected arguments to dismiss the civil rights lawsuit brought by Hanson against Lucio and Cameron County. The move has heartened Hanson’s counsel but has not dispirited her opponents.
The federal lawsuit was heard in court in January by U.S. District Judge Hilda G. Tagle. In the case, Hanson alleges that Lucio retaliated against her in 2008 after she publicly criticized him and the county for the operation of the county’s jail system, court documents show.
Lucio and Cameron County are represented by the county’s Civil Legal Division. On Thursday, the division’s counsel, Richard Burst, expressed confidence that his clients would ultimately prevail despite their argument that the court had no jurisdiction in the case.
"It’s not unusual to lose (the dismissal request) in the early part of the case," Burst said.
"It’s far from over," Burst added, noting that the next step would be the discovery process.
However, the Texas Civil Rights Project attorneys who represent Hanson feel that Tagle’s dismissal is significant.
This "is the main hurdle in federal civil rights cases," Jim Harrington, director of the Austin-based Texas Civil Rights Project, said in a telephone interview.
"The opinion was pretty strong and paved a way toward the future — and probably put the writing on the wall for the defendants," Harrington said.
Local attorney Edward A. Stapleton along with several other attorneys also represent Hanson in the lawsuit, which she initially filed in state district court in March 2009. The case was transferred to federal court in September.
Hanson began serving as a volunteer chaplain visiting prisoners in 2000, but Lucio banned her from jail facilities in 2008. Hanson said she was banned after she spoke at a candidate forum regarding the egregious conditions she said she observed at the jail.
According to court documents, Hanson claims that women inmates:
- Suffered miscarriages as the result of poor health services
- Were denied sanitary napkins and hygiene packages
- Were sleeping on the floor due to overcrowding
- Were given food with hair and gnats in it
Hanson is not seeking monetary damages. She is requesting that Lucio be stopped from banning her from the jail system and that she be allowed to continue her volunteer ministry.
In responding to Hanson’s complaints, Lucio and the county allege that she has become too emotionally involved with some of the inmates to be trusted to carry out the duties of a chaplain.
According to court documents, the county claims that, "(Hanson) has crossed the line between being a chaplain and an activist, advocate, or reporter, none of whom are entitled without the sheriff’s consent to enter the Cameron County jail system."
Lucio and the county also maintain that Hanson has the inability to separate truth from fiction when it comes to what some of the inmates tell her and that this creates security risks.
Furthermore, "the Cameron County sheriff is entitled to great deference as a jail administrator in terms of who he may choose to allow inside the jail at all."
