ATLANTA — On Friday, a Fulton County judge denied a bond request from a Fulton County Jail inmate whose attorney argued that the jail was unfit for human habitation.
Defense attorneys typically try to spring inmates from jail by arguing that they aren’t a risk to commit more crimes or flee the jurisdiction. But this argument went straight to the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.
Ricardo Tolbert has spent most of the last year at the Fulton County Jail on a murder charge he denies. It's "excruciating and scary, every day" given the conditions in the jail, his wife Sonya Owens said.
Tolbert appeared in a Fulton County courtroom with a public defender, Arnold Ragas, who asked for bond – telling the judge “the Fulton County Jail is not fit for human habitation. I don’t know that there can be any argument otherwise.”
Other attorneys have echoed the argument in public but not in court. It has been heightened by a series of inmate deaths in the jail – 17 since last September, six of them in the last six weeks, that's an average of one per week.
In November, Tolbert was hailed a hero by neighbors for rescuing a child from a burning apartment that took another child’s life in East Point.
“I’m glad I was there and able to save that baby’s life," Tolbert told 11Alive News, as a neighbor added "you saved her."
"I wish I could have been earlier and saved everybody’s life," Tolbert said.
He was arrested a week later. The murder charge was unrelated to the fire incident.
Ragas argued the conditions at the Fulton Jail violates Tolbert’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Owens said her husband’s incarceration is impacting her health.
"Because I be up. Can’t sleep thinking about it. It’s sad. It’s very sad," she said outside the courtroom.
Superior Court Judge Melynee Leftridge took a break to ponder the argument but came back and denied bond.
Tolbert may get a trial in December or January at the earliest.