Death, Illness, and Notification in Kentucky Prisons

There are two directions a death or a serious illness can travel through a prison wall, and a family usually only thinks about it when it is already happening.

One direction is from the outside in. Someone in the family is dying or has died, and you need the prison to tell your incarcerated person, and you are wondering whether he can be there for it. The other direction is from the inside out. Your person is the one who is sick, or who has died in custody, and you are trying to find out what happened and what you are allowed to do. This article walks both directions for Kentucky, run by the Kentucky Department of Corrections.

I am going to tell you something up front, because I learned it the hard way and I do not want it to land on you cold. An approval that has been granted is not the same as your person being there. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where families get hurt.

When the Death or Illness Is on the Outside

If someone in the family is gravely ill or has died and you want your incarcerated person notified, the channel is the facility, usually through the chaplain or the inmate's caseworker. Call the institution, explain the emergency, and be ready to provide verification, such as the funeral home's information or a death certificate for a death, or a hospital or physician confirmation for a serious illness. Kentucky's policy specifically calls for confirmation of a death to be verified through the funeral home, so have that contact ready.

Notification is the part that tends to work. Whether your person can leave the prison to be there is a separate and much harder question.

Attending a Funeral or a Bedside Visit in Kentucky

Kentucky handles this through two policies that work together: a furlough policy that allows a visit to a seriously ill relative or attendance at the funeral of a relative, and an escorted-trip policy that governs how a guarded trip is conducted. Read these as the realities, not as promises.

It is verified and approved at a high level. Institutional staff verify the illness or death, and the request goes up for approval. In practice these escorted-leave and furlough decisions for a death or critical illness are approved at the warden or commissioner level, and they turn on custody level, security, and the verified relationship.

It is a guarded, in-state trip. An approved trip is made in a state vehicle, the person is dressed in a transportation uniform, accompanying officers keep the person in sight at all times, and a Kentucky furlough is generally to a place within the Commonwealth. Be aware that the time at a funeral or bedside under the escorted-trip rules can be quite limited, in the range of a half hour at the location, so this is not an open-ended visit.

The family generally pays the costs. Incidental expenses of the trip are charged at actual cost to the incarcerated person's account, so plan for the family to bear the cost of a guarded trip.

Now the part I promised you.

I was told I had a five-hour furlough to attend my mother's funeral. I was told to get dressed and wait for the escort. I got dressed. I waited. The escort never came. Word going around was that the warden had been moved or was on leave, and the assistant warden denied it. Nobody walked up to me with a form. The day just passed. What I got, in the end, was a free phone call.

I tell you that not to make you bitter before you start, but to make you smart. An approval that exists on paper is not a person standing at a graveside. Administrators change. Acting wardens reverse decisions. Escort details fall through. If you are pinning the family's grief on the hope that he will physically be there, you are building on sand. Plan the service around the family that can be there. If he makes it, that is a mercy. If he does not, you were not depending on it, and the grief is heavy enough without that.

Ask about a phone call at minimum. Even when a trip is denied or impossible, the facility can usually allow a call. Ask the chaplain or caseworker directly, and ask early.

When the Illness or Death Is on the Inside

The other direction is harder, because you have less control and the information comes slower.

If your person is seriously ill in custody. Push for medical information, knowing that medical privacy rules limit what staff will share unless the incarcerated person has authorized release of information to you. Encourage your person, while able, to sign a release naming you. If the condition is terminal or grave, learn about Kentucky's medical release route now, not later.

Kentucky medical parole. Kentucky has a medical release mechanism, found in its statutes at KRS 439.3405, which provides for parole consideration of prisoners with documented terminal medical conditions, decided by the Kentucky Parole Board. Be aware that this same process goes by several different names in Kentucky's own documents, including early medical consideration, early parole, emergency medical parole, medical parole, and compassionate release; they all refer to the same thing. In general it covers people who are terminally ill, often described as having less than about a year to live, and certain serious acute or chronic conditions, and the Board weighs the medical condition along with the seriousness of the offense. The practical lesson is the one I keep repeating: if your person may qualify, get the diagnosis and prognosis documented by the medical staff, ask the institution to start the process, request a hearing before the Parole Board, and get an attorney involved, because these decisions are discretionary and slow, and a terminal illness does not wait.

Ordinary parole and clemency. If your person is near a regular parole eligibility date, make sure the Parole Board has the medical information, since the Board considers general health among its factors. For someone who does not fit the medical-parole route, a pardon or commutation from the Governor is the route of last resort, and it is rare and slow.

If your person dies in custody. The Department notifies the family using the emergency contact your person has on record, which is exactly why that contact must be correct now. The county coroner, who handles next-of-kin notification in a coroner's case, may also be involved. Make sure the listed person is reachable and will tell the rest of the family.

Investigation, autopsy, and the coroner. Kentucky uses a county coroner system, supported by the Office of the Kentucky State Medical Examiner. By statute, a death that occurs while a person is in police custody, a jail, or a penal institution is a mandatory coroner's case requiring a post-mortem examination. The coroner investigates, may order an autopsy performed by a forensic pathologist at one of the state medical examiner's regional facilities, and controls the process while it proceeds. Until directed by the coroner, the body and anything on it are not to be disturbed.

Claiming the body. The next of kin claims the remains, generally by working with a funeral home. Helpfully, once the autopsy is completed the body can be released to the funeral home, so the coroner's investigation does not necessarily mean a long wait to claim your person. Make your intention to claim your person known promptly and be clear about who the legal next of kin is, because disputes between family members slow everything down. The coroner's office also handles the return of personal property to the next of kin, who generally must sign for it. If the family cannot afford a funeral, ask the funeral home and the county about burial assistance.

What Families Can Do Before a Crisis

Most of the pain in these situations comes from decisions that were never made in calm times. A few things you can do now, while no one is dying:

Make sure your person has the correct emergency contact and next of kin recorded with the Department, and keep it current. This determines who the prison calls.

Have your person sign a release of information naming the family members who should be allowed to speak with medical staff. Without it, privacy rules will keep you in the dark.

Learn your person's custody level, because it affects whether an escorted funeral or bedside trip is realistic, and budget for the fact that the family generally pays the trip costs and that time at the location can be short.

If your person has a terminal or grave condition, do not wait. Ask the institution to start medical parole under KRS 439.3405, get the diagnosis documented, and consider an attorney.

Keep the funeral home's contact information ready, both to verify an outside death so your person can be notified, and to claim your person if they die inside.

State Resources

Kentucky Department of Corrections: contact the institution directly; use the DOC website and the Kentucky Online Offender Lookup (KOOL) for facility, chaplain, and caseworker contacts.

Kentucky Parole Board: for medical parole under KRS 439.3405 and regular parole.

County Coroner: for cause of death, next-of-kin notification, and release of remains in the county where the death occurred.

Office of the Kentucky State Medical Examiner, Frankfort: for autopsy reports, subject to confidentiality rules during an open investigation.

Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics: for certified copies of the death certificate.

Kentucky 211: dial 2-1-1 for grief support, funeral assistance resources, and counseling referrals.