(Host) The state has paid $750,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the family of an inmate who died while in state custody. The family wants to use most of the money to provide legal help to other inmates who challenge prison conditions.
Claire Quigley is the mother of James Quigley, an inmate who killed himself in October 2003 after spending several months in solitary confinement.
(Quigley) “I just feel like it’s the beginning of greater change for the penal institution. I hope it just becomes an avalanche of new ideas and new ways to function. I feel that Jimmy’s life promoted this and that there’s a soul journey in what he has been through. And this is a beginning. I don’t know where it’s going, but I intend to take up the torch.”
(Dillon) James Quigley was known as a jailhouse lawyer who filed numerous complaints about prison conditions. A report commissioned for Governor Jim Douglas concluded that Quigley was probably placed in lengthy solitary confinement as retaliation for his complaints.