By CRIS BARRISH / The News Journal
10/19/2004
Electronic security doors continue to be propped open in two Delaware prisons, including the unit where unlocked doors led to a 27-year-old counselor's abduction and rape in July, the counselor's attorney said Monday.
The doors are being kept open by "chocks'' and bottles, attorney Jeffrey K. Martin told a gubernatorial task force holding its first meeting to investigate counselor Cassandra C. Arnold's July 12 attack by a serial rapist.
Arnold's seven-hour ordeal at Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna ended when a rescuer hiding in a ceiling shot inmate Scott A. Miller to death as he tried to stab her with a homemade shank. Miller was serving a 699-year prison term
Martin said he was tipped off last week about other open doors by an inmate at the prison, Delaware's largest, and an employee at the smaller Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown. Martin would not identify the whistle-blowers.
"They just don't get it,'' Martin said of top Delaware prison officials after the meeting. "These are very serious security breaches and could result in another July 12.''
Stanley W. Taylor Jr., state Department of Correction commissioner, would not agree to an interview Monday on Martin's allegation but issued a statement through spokeswoman Beth Welch saying he met this month with top managers at Delaware's prisons. "I tasked the respective institutional managers to ensure that our facilities are operating in a secure manner,'' Taylor's statement said.
Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's chief legal counsel, Joseph C. Schoell, who attended Monday's task force meeting, said Martin's report concerned him. "The state can't tolerate any laxness in the prison system,'' Schoell said.
Martin's report should be taken seriously, members of the seven-person task force said.
"It bothers me,'' said task force Vice Chairman Thomas P. McGonigle, a Wilmington attorney and former legal adviser to Minner's predecessor, U.S. Sen. Tom Carper. "These are issues we need to look at, and hopefully we'll get folks to come forward and discuss this.''
Added member Vincent A. Bifferato Sr., a retired Superior Court judge: "You hear that and you are concerned. If it's done at Smyrna, it's probably done at Sussex'' and other Delaware prisons, he said.
An Oct. 6 internal report on Arnold's abduction, made public by Taylor, said two open security doors outside offices used by Arnold and other employees of a medium-high security unit contributed to the hostage standoff. Arnold sued the state last week, claiming Minner, Taylor and other prison officials violated her civil rights by running an unsafe prison with frequent security breaches and overworked and poorly trained guards.
Minner appointed the task force the same day Taylor's report was released. She asked the panel to issue a report by Jan. 31. Members said Monday they would conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the incident and named retired Chancery Court Chancellor Grover C. Brown their chairman.
Members decided to tour the area of Building 24 where Arnold was taken hostage, to obtain key documents used by prison officials in their investigation and to interview Taylor and other employees, including guards on duty July 12. Steps will be taken to grant anonymity to whistle-blowers, they said. Schoell said money is available to hire outside experts.
Corrections officials plan to cooperate with the task force, Welch said.
Contact senior reporter Cris Barrish at 324-2785 or cbarrish@delawareonline.com.
