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Ohio ACLU: Give Lisbon inmate hearing aids
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio has sued the state, seeking to force prison officials to provide a Lisbon inmate convicted in a 2002 murder with two functioning hearing aids.
At issue is a state prison policy of providing only one working hearing aid per inmate.
James Handwork was sentenced to 15 years to life for the killing of Lasonya Young of Alliance. Her partially clothed body was found on a Portage County road. She was beaten and stabbed.
He’s incarcerated at the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut.
The ACLU of Ohio filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction after the prison denied Handwork two functioning hearing aids.
According to the group, Handwork needs aids in both ears due to damage that occurred during military service in the 1980s. His original hearing aids were lost after he was arrested in August 2002. He received new ones the following summer. That pair lasted him until late last year, when he began to have trouble with them.
“Prison officials refused to replace both of Mr. Handwork’s hearing aids and would only replace one,” the ACLU writes in court filings, citing state prison policy that ensures “one working hearing aid. … The established protocol of ODRC health services is that hearing aid replacement is to ensure the inmate is able to hear, at a minimum, from one ear.”
The lack of two functioning hearing aids also have caused Handwork vertigo issues, and he cannot communicate effectively with other inmates or prison staff, according to documents.