By Tom McLaughlin
Northwest Florida Daily News
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla. — A partially disabled man who claims he was abused by jailers at the Santa Rosa County Correctional Institution has obtained high-powered help in pursuing legal action.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Florida Justice Institute announced in a Tuesday news release their decision to support Richard Allen Jackson in a lawsuit he filed last April.
Jackson, 56, is partially paralyzed in his lower limbs, according to the news release sent out by the ACLU.
“Prison officials at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution refused to allow Jackson the use of a wheelchair inside his cell,” the release said, “requiring him to drag himself using his hands and arms in order to navigate between his bed and the toilet, and to enter and exit the cell.”
Jackson has been incarcerated since 1993, serving a 25-year sentence for an indecent assault on a child under the age of 16, according to the Florida Department of Corrections website.
The suit names the department and Richard Comerford, warden at Santa Rosa Correctional Institute, as defendants.
“I can’t make any comment on that right now; it’s an ongoing case,” Comerford said when asked about Jackson and the ACLU.
The lawsuit also alleges Jackson was mistreated and had food withheld at another facility after he was moved from Santa Rosa County.
“People in our prisons should not be subject to inhuman and degrading conditions or be denied medically necessary accommodations,” ACLU of Florida staff attorney Benjamin Stevenson said in the release.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jessica Terry also had no comment on the lawsuit, which the ACLU and FJI signed on to last week.