TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Tarrant County will pay $750,000 to the family of a 52-year-old woman who died after suffering severe dehydration in 2021 while incarcerated at the Tarrant County Jail.
Court records show Tarrant County made the offer to the family of Georgia Baldwin on Sept. 24, who accepted. A press release from Dean Malone, the attorney for the Baldwin family, states that this offer came after both parties participated in an unsuccessful mediation.
“It is unfortunate in cases like this that counties do not at the beginning of a case, when they already know everything that happened, make a meaningful effort to resolve the case,” Malone said in a statement. “We filed this case well over a year ago. Regardless, even though the judgment amount is inadequate when measured against the suffering and loss of life, if nothing else, perhaps resolution of this case will lead to changes not only in the Tarrant County Jail, but also other jails across Texas.”
Baldwin was jailed after suffering a severe mental health episode, during which she reportedly left threatening phone calls to an Arlington police spokesman. These led to her being arrested on a felony terroristic threat charge in April 2021.
In June 2021, Baldwin was found not competent to stand trial following a psychiatric exam. A judge ordered her to be sent to a state mental health hospital, but wait times for beds are anywhere from 200 days to almost a year-and-a-half.
“Throughout Ms. Baldwin’s incarceration at the Tarrant County jail, she continued to evidence severe mental health issues,” a press release from Malone stated. “There was no doubt to anyone in the jail that she could not care for her own needs and needed inpatient mental health treatment at an appropriate facility. Ms. Baldwin, through her many statements and actions, showed that she was out of touch with reality. Regardless, Tarrant County continued to incarcerate her.”
Five months into being kept at the jail, on Sept. 14, 2021, Baldwin was found unresponsive in her cell. She was pronounced dead an hour later at John Peter Smith Hospital. An autopsy found she had died of “severe hypernatremia,” a high concentration of sodium in the blood.
“Georgia couldn’t pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, I need some counseling,’ or ‘Hey, can you get me a psychiatrist so perhaps I can get some medication,’” Malone told WFAA earlier this year. “She can’t say, ‘Hey, I’d really like to be transferred to an appropriate mental health facility or get better treatment.’ She didn’t have those options. Tarrant County had to do it.”