by Matt Clarke

On December 1, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that jailers could not be held liable for the death of a Georgia pretrial detainee caused by lack of medical care. The Court’s rationale was that the jailers followed the advice of medical personnel and it was not obvious that the symptoms were that of a perforated ulcer rather than drug withdrawal.

When Kevil Wingo was booked into the Cobb County Jail for possession of 0.2 grams of cocaine, “he was complaining of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal discomfort. He was also heard pleading with God, saying that he would never touch drugs again should he survive.” This caused nurse Yvette Burton (who worked for Wellstar Health Systems, the jail’s contracted provider of health care) to believe he was suffering from opiate withdrawal when she saw him at 12:45 a.m. on September 29, 2019.

Wingo was placed on a 5-day period of “withdrawal checks” every 12 minutes, admitted into the infirmary, and scheduled to see a physician in the morning. His very loud complaining of being unable to breathe and needing hospitalization disturbed other detainees. Deputy Lynda Marshall “relayed these complaints to the nurses who told her that Wingo was ‘just trying to go to the hospital, he was detoxing, drug seeking [and] that he was okay.’”

As higher-ranking guards arrived, Marshall explained the problem first to Lieutenant Charles Gordon, then to Major Brandon Harris. Nurse Annaleen Visser, who also believed Wingo was suffering from withdrawal, recommended he be transferred to a padded isolation cell in the infirmary extension. Before transferring Wingo, Harris checked again with Visser who assured him it was medically appropriate to do so.

Wingo was transferred at 7:45 a.m. They had to use a wheelchair because he was too unstable to walk on his own. Gordon asked the nurses why Wingo was so unbalanced and was told it was a symptom of detoxing.

Deputy Paul Wilkerson was responsible for monitoring Wingo while he was in the isolation cell. He was supposed to frequently make in-person checks but admitted using the camera in the cell for some checks. He found Wingo unresponsive in the corner of the cell when he opened the cell door at 8:49 a.m. The medical examiner later determined he had died of a perforated gastric ulcer with peritonitis.

Wingo’s family and estate filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Wellstar, Wellstar employees, Harris, Gordon, Wilkerson and Marshall claiming they were deliberately indifferent to Wingo’s serious medical needs. The jail staff defendants filed a successful motion for summary judgment asserting they could not be held liable because they followed the advice of medical personnel. Aided by Decatur, Georgia attorneys Timothy J. Gardner and Henrietta C. Brown, plaintiffs appealed.

The Eleventh Circuit noted it had previously held that guards were not deliberately indifferent when they reasonably relied on a nurse’s professional judgment unless the situation was so obviously dire that the guards must have known that the medical professional had made a gross misjudgment. See: Townsend v. Jefferson County, 601 F.3d 1152 (11th Cir. 2010). Further, because plaintiff’s expert could not state to any degree of medical certainty that Wilkerson’s failure to conduct the in-person checks contributed to Wingo’s death, plaintiffs failed to prove causation with respect to him which was fatal to that claim. Therefore, the Court affirmed the grant of summary judgment. See: Wingo v. Wellstar Health System, Inc., 160 F.4th 1184 (11th Cir. 2025)  

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