Wrongful death lawsuit filed over inmate’s prison murder

Lawyers representing the families of two Hawaii inmates who were murdered in separate incidents in a privately run prison in Arizona in 2010 say the deaths should motivate the state to speed up efforts to bring its inmates back home.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Human Rights Defense Center and a private law firm in San Francisco filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state court Wednesday on behalf of the family of Clifford Makaio Medina against the state of Hawaii and private prison operator Corrections Corp. of America.

The Hawaii Department of Public Safety said the state attorney general is reviewing the lawsuit and advised department officials not to comment on it until state lawyers have had time to look it over.

Of the approximately 6,000 inmates in the state system, 1,677 are in Arizona, including 1,616 in CCA’s Saguaro Correctional Center.

Medina was 23 when he was strangled at the Saguaro facility June 8, 2010, by his cellmate, Mahinauli Silva, another inmate from Hawaii.

Silva, 23, pleaded guilty in March 2010 in Arizona state court to murder and must serve 16 years in prison in Arizona custody after he completes his 10-year Hawaii sentence for burglary, theft and robbery.

The lawyers for Medina’s mother, sister and two aunts say Medina’s death is a result of the serious deficiencies inherent in private prisons where the profit motive overrides the public and prisoners’ safety.

Less than four months before Medina’s murder, another Hawaii inmate, 26-year-old Bronson Nunuha, was fatally stabbed and beaten by two other Hawaii inmates at Saguaro.

San Francisco lawyer Sanford Jay Rosen said the state failed to properly monitor conditions at Saguaro and could have prevented Medina’s murder by keeping him in prison in Hawaii. Rosen said CCA officials failed to respond when Silva requested to not be housed in the same cell as Medina, and that officials failed to perform proper checks of the cells immediately after Silva strangled Medi­na, which could have given officials time to revive Medina.

Rosen said that although Silva and Medina were both developmentally disabled, they were not compatible cellmates.

"They were both in for basically property crimes, although the murderer, one of his crimes involves the use of a weapon," Rosen said.

Medina was on probation for jumping bail, two burglaries and a theft when he violated his probation by punching a man in Waikiki in December 2008 for refusing to buy his fake drugs, then punching and attempting to take the gun of a police officer who tried to arrest him.

When he was murdered, Medina was serving a five-year prison term for violating his probation and for assaulting a law enforcement officer.