On April 23, 2024, the mother of a deceased Missouri prisoner prevailed on appeal against the state Department of Corrections (DOC), which a lower court had found knowingly violated the Missouri Sunshine Law when it denied her records about her son and his suicide, awarding her $59,508.99 in damages and legal fees.
Jahi Hynes, 27, was eight years into a 13-year term for burglary when he fatally hanged himself at Southeast Correctional Center (SECC) in Charleston on April 4, 2021. But it was a cascade of failures by staffers with DOC and its contracted medical provider, Corizon Health—now YesCare—that were ultimately blamed in the wrongful death suit filed by the dead prisoner’s mother.
Before she could file that complaint, however, Willa Hynes first had to battle DOC for more information than the phone call she received the day her son died, when a staffer told her that he had “hurt himself” and died, and that “the DOC could release no further information regarding the circumstances of his death.”
After months of fruitless email exchanges, Hynes retained counsel and filed a request pursuant to the state’s Sunshine Law for all records relating to her son, including surveillance camera footage covering …
