A woman who gave birth alone in her cell while detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia is alleging in federal court that correctional staff members ignored her cries for help as she went into labor in August 2021 and that her infant son died of a treatable infection.
Attorneys for Jemika Johnson, 24, said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was not receiving her prescribed anti-anxiety medications while on pretrial detention at the facility in Stafford. Jail officials have denied Johnson’s claims, arguing in court filings that she was not deprived of her constitutional rights and that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it was filed too late under the statute of limitations.
Lawyers involved in the case said U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who sits in Alexandria, is expected to hold a hearing in the coming weeks on whether to throw out the complaint.
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The jail’s staff and medical contractors “engaged in a cycle of punishing and isolating Ms. Johnson, while allowing her mental and physical health, and that of her unborn baby, to dangerously deteriorate,” her attorneys alleged in a 59-page filing.
Johnson said in her lawsuit that she had declined medication to treat schizophrenia and an appointment with an obstetrician-gynecologist in the weeks leading up to her delivery, in the early morning of Aug. 3, 2021. “At least twenty-six correctional officers were on duty” that day, but her emergency calls through the facility’s intercom went unanswered, she alleged. A jail corporal making the morning rounds found Johnson and her infant in a pool of blood some time between 7:09 a.m. and 7:11 a.m., five hours after she went into premature labor, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, which would be determined at a potential trial. Johnson alleges she was the victim of discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act, among other claims, including wrongful death of her son.
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“I think about it all the time, about what happened,” Johnson said in a statement provided by her attorneys. “I never want to experience anything like that again. I didn’t want them to get away with what happened.”
Attorneys for the Rappahannock Regional Jail Authority and the correctional staff members named as defendants have argued that almost all of Johnson’s claims fall outside the statute of limitations and that there were no constitutional violations because none of the jail’s policies led to her injuries or the death of her son.
An attorney for the medical contractors providing services at the Rappahannock Regional Jail, which serves multiple Virginia jurisdictions, said in a court filing Friday that Johnson’s claims against them had “no basis in law or fact” and that “Johnson declined to be evaluated at the OBGYN appointment.”
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Key to the case is whether Johnson’s son was delivered alive, because the wrongful-death claim stems from the events of Aug. 3, 2021. That date falls within the two-year statute of limitations; the lawsuit was first filed on Aug. 1, 2023. “The autopsy revealed evidence that the infant was born alive, including a gastric air bubble, although the findings were discordant,” according to Johnson’s complaint.
The Virginia medical examiner found that Johnson’s infant died of acute chorioamnionitis, “a common condition which would have been identifiable and easily treatable with antibiotics, if Ms. Johnson had received medical care,” her attorneys alleged.
Another question is how jail staff members who recorded that they checked Johnson’s cell at least 10 times after she went into labor, including a notation that she was served breakfast at 5:18 a.m., could have missed a woman crying out for help as she delivered a baby. The jail’s records of those 10 checks make no mention of Johnson screaming or being in labor, according to one of her attorneys, Nicole Rheault of the Georgetown University Civil Rights Clinic.
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“The heartbreaking thing about this case is that Ms. Johnson was really failed at every turn, and a lot of people in these facilities have the power to step in and make sure something like this didn’t happen,” Rheault said. Johnson has received mental health treatment and moved in with relatives in Maryland, her attorneys said.
Attorneys for the jail defendants and medical contractors did not respond to requests for comment.
Stafford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen, who would oversee the prosecution of any criminal offenses at the jail, said that he was aware of the lawsuit and that no criminal charges had been filed in connection with the matter.
