Kern settles case of man’s jail death

Filed: 10/04/2000

From the Bakersfield Californian

The family of Danny Dunn, who died in Kern County’s downtown jail 20 months ago, will receive $65,000 under a legal settlement approved Tuesday.

The Kern County Board of Supervisors settled the wrongful-death case with Dunn’s parents and heirs in a closed meeting.

The county wanted to avoid an expensive trial and does not admit culpability in Dunn’s death, said Mark Nations, chief deputy of litigation in the Kern County counsel’s office.

"You have to compute the costs of all the discovery, the depositions, medical examinations, expert witnesses," he said. "That’s going to be pretty expensive."

James Faulkner, the Dunns’ attorney, said Dunn’s mother will use some of the money to pay off funeral expenses and legal bills.

She also wants to set up a nonprofit organization to provide a civilian review of the Bakersfield Police Department and Kern County Sheriff’s Department, he said.

“Mrs. Dunn talked it over with her family and decided she wanted to get on with her life," Faulkner said. “I think this gives her closure in the death of her son.”

The family alleged that jail staff assaulted, beat and kicked the 37-year-old Dunn Feb. 19, 1999, and then failed to provide him necessary medical care.

Bakersfield police arrested Dunn about six hours earlier on suspicion of public intoxication. Later tests showed Dunn was not drunk, but apparently experiencing a manic episode.

Dunn died of bleeding from a torn liver already weakened by chronic alcohol consumption, an autopsy showed. It was not clear whether the liver was torn in a struggle with deputies or in a previous incident.

The county countered that Dunn came into the jail acting erratically and with extensive injuries, including a skull fracture and broken ribs from a bicycle accident the day of his arrest.

Also, Dunn fell down stairs just before the arrest, county officials said.

Jail staffers, they also argued, did not use excessive force in trying to subdue Dunn and could not immediately have known he had internal injuries.

Dunn was the son of Patrick Dunn, whose 1993 murder conviction was the subject of Mean Justice, a book critical of county prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators.