Attorney Darl Champion Featured in AJC Article Spotlighting Georgia Prison Failures

A recent article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlights numerous failures by the Georgia prison system to adequately care for inmates, resulting in a disturbing trend of prisoner deaths and injuries. 

Among the cases mentioned in the article is that of Agnes Bohannon, a mother whose continued requests for medical treatment of a cardiac event were neglected by Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) staff, resulting in Bohannon’s death. 

Bohannon’s adult children hired The Champion Firm to seek justice for their mother’s death, and attorneys Darl Champion and Eric Funt succeeded in recovering $1.5 million for the family. (You can read the full case story here.)

The AJC article, which notes that the state has paid over $20 million to settle death and injury claims since 2018, quotes Darl Champion as an attorney fighting on the front lines against Georgia’s prison system failures:

“Attorneys who have represented family members said the deaths are a symptom of widespread problems in Georgia’s prison system.

‘The state has to take a long, hard look at just a complete overhaul of the correctional system and look at everything it can do to make it safer, to actually fulfill the purpose of a prison,’ said Darl H. Champion, an attorney who represented the family of Agnes Bohannon, whose family alleged she complained for days of illness but didn’t get adequate care and died days later. The state paid $1.5 million to settle the case.

The problems of violence, understaffing, lack of rehabilitation and poor medical care are all tied together, Champion said. If prisons are understaffed and violent, he said, those serving time aren’t reformed, recruiting qualified staff becomes more difficult and healthcare providers simply don’t want to take jobs in prisons, so health care suffers, too.

‘If you compartmentalize these problems and look at them separately, it’ll never get fixed,’ Champion said. ‘You’ve got to look at the whole thing and see how it’s all related.’”

In addition to Bohannon, the AJC article highlights a troubling 15 additional cases since 2018 in which the Georgia Department of Administrative Services paid prison-related legal settlements. You can read the full article here with an AJC subscription. 

If you or someone you know has been injured or died as a result of another party’s negligence, The Champion Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.C. can help you hold those responsible liable. Contact us today for a free case consultation, and know that our contingency fee policy means you pay us nothing until we win your case. You can also read the hundreds of 5-star reviews our past clients have written on Google, or check out more of our past case results for clients here.