The Grand Traverse County prosecutor sees no crime in the death of a county jail inmate early last month. Prosecutor Al Schneider has reviewed a city police investigation of the death Danny Whitney Junior, who died of a methadone overdose April 2nd.
Schneider says Whitney was sent to jail that day by his probation officer who believed he was under the influence, and so in violation of his probation.
But Schneider says Whitney did not appear to be in any sort of medical distress.
“Why then the toxicity of the methadone overtook him at a later time, I’m not a medical expert, I don’t know. There was no medical emergency which required him to be taken to the hospital as far as I could see,” he says.
There’s a high standard to charge jail employees with a crime in such cases. A prosecutor would have to prove county workers had some type of corrupt purpose for their actions.
The family could still file civil charges.
Comments
Post new comment