Grotesque is the most outrageous word I know to describe the Attorney General’s fight against a lawsuit filed by a civilian teacher who was raped in prison by a sex offender.
The AG’s office argued she didn’t have a right to sue because she knew she was in a dangerous place and this too: “Of course if plaintiff (the teacher) did appreciate the danger of her situation, as an employee, she could have done something about it.”
So she has no right to sue and she asked for it.
Gross.
Thankfully, Federal Judge Susan Bolton has thrown that ridiculous argument out, saying “the factual allegations…show that defendants (the prison) owed a duty to plaintiff and that their failure to perform this duty created the dangerous environment in which plaintiff was placed.”
The record shows the prison mistakenly assessed convicted rapist Jacob Harvey as a “low-risk offender.” That allowed him in the 2014 class in the first place, where he waited until others left, then repeatedly stabbed the teacher with a pencil and raped her.
DOC knew the classroom was filled with supposedly low-risk, but sex offending prisoners, yet they had no guards nearby and the teacher says they didn’t come when she tried to get help. She was unarmed and not trained to defend herself because, wouldn’t you think–she had an expectation that the prison didn’t hire her to teach convicts so she’d be assaulted.
They owed her protection and didn’t give it and now they must face the music. Not use the grotesque argument that it had to be all her fault.
Shame on Arizona!
Jana,
Thanks for continuing to be our voice.
Thank you for following up on this story. That some might take the AG’s position is regrettable; that our own government would do it is inexcusable.
Nice job on this.