Etowah County Jail in Gadsden, Alabama (Google Maps).
Abandoned to give birth on the floor of an Alabama jail shower unaided, a woman has reached a settlement in her lawsuit against the county that she says treated her as if she were “less than nothing.”
In October 2023, Ashley Caswell took legal action against Etowah County, including the sheriff’s office, its jail, and other officials, in federal court. This followed a two-year prior incident where she gave birth in the jail premises. While both she and her newborn survived, Caswell almost lost her life due to a placental abruption that led to severe hemorrhaging, according to her legal team.
“I felt they treated me like I was less than nothing, and I was terrified my baby and I would die. I decided I had to speak up by filing the lawsuit,” Caswell stated Monday in a press release. “Standing up for myself wasn’t easy, but reaching this settlement reassures me I made the right choice to sue. I hope they will ensure this doesn’t happen to another woman again.”
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Caswell accused the county of “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs” and negligence, among other claims. The terms of the settlement were not publicly released.
She was arrested in March 2021 under Alabama’s chemical endangerment law for using drugs when she was two months pregnant. Passed in 2006, the law was designed to punish parents who exposed children to drugs, particularly meth, at a time when it was running rampant across the state, according to the Bloomston Firm. However, according to a report by AL.com, the law has been disproportionally applied to pregnant mothers like Caswell.
The 62-page complaint alleged denial of prenatal health care and prescribed psychiatric medication. Plaintiff lawyers said jail officials refused to take her to a facility about 65 miles away that specialized in high-risk pregnancies like Caswell’s — which had previously been common practice — because the jail “did not have enough people to transport her there.” She was taken to the facility when she was previously pregnant at the jail in 2019, per the lawsuit.
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Officials also refused to take her to weekly prenatal appointments even after week 36 of her pregnancy, she said in the lawsuit.
“As a direct result of Defendants’ actions and inactions, Ms. Caswell’s constitutional rights were violated because she did not receive regular prenatal medical attention necessary for her high-risk pregnancy,” the lawsuit said.
Jail staff took her to a local hospital in September 2021 after she began having contractions. Doctors said she was experiencing “poor nutrition” and was “highly stressed” due to a lack of sleep as she spent the duration of her pregnancy sleeping on a mattress on the floor. She was forced to sleep on the mattress on the floor even after doctors recommended she be given a bottom bunk bed, per the complaint.
Caswell’s water broke on Oct. 16, 2021, three days before she was scheduled to have her labor induced. She told staff she needed to go to the emergency room, but they told allegedly said she “just needed to lie down” in a cell in the medical unit. Caswell spent some 12 hours “constantly screaming from the agonizing pain and begging for help,” the lawsuit stated. Instead of helping her, staff allegedly told her to “sleep it off.”
Staff took her to the shower room around 6 p.m. on the day in question, plaintiff lawyers said. One staff member allegedly stood a few feet away but did not help.
“She turned off the water and delivered her baby while standing upright on a concrete floor, without the aid of any medical personnel or medication,” the complaint said.
Caswell later said it felt like her body was “ripping apart.”
Several staff members came to the shower area at this point. As she lay naked and bleeding on the floor, a couple staff members posed for a photo with the baby with the umbilical cord still attached, per the lawsuit. She was approved to go to the hospital but waited another 20 minutes for the ambulance to come. Paramedics cut the cord and transported her to the hospital.
Plaintiff lawyers included Pregnancy Justice, the Southern Poverty Law Center and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.
“This settlement sends a clear message: A person’s carceral status doesn’t make them any less human or less deserving of civil rights,” Pregnancy Justice Senior Staff Attorney Emma Roth said in a statement.
Pregnancy Justice noted that Caswell’s treatment is “part of a disturbing pattern of inhumane treatment at the jail.”
Caswell’s issues with drug addiction apparently continued after her release from the jail in April 2022. She tested positive for meth in August of that year while she was around four months pregnant and was again jailed on the chemical endangerment charge.
A spokesperson for the Etowah County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
