Diane Bailey turned 74-years old Feb. 2 — the same day she died while in jail custody at Parkland Hospital. Her death was not reported to a state oversight agency, apparently because of a technicality.
Bailey's is not the only death the Dallas County Sheriff's Office did not report to the state. Among nearly a dozen unreported deaths while in jail custody throughout Texas in the last three years, Julie Buelna also died in custody at a Dallas hospital less than two weeks after Bailey.
After Bailey died, a failure to appear in court notice was sent to her on Feb. 18, and on April 3 a warrant for her arrest was issued.
She had been arrested for drug possession on Dec. 29 in Dallas County. The charge was first listed as a class C misdemeanor, which carries no jail time.
Handcuffed to a stretcher, she was transported to Parkland on Feb 3 after she was injured at the jail, though court documents do not describe her injuries or explain how she was injured.
On Feb. 4, a felony charge for possession of a controlled substance was dropped because she had "suffered a life-altering neurological injury, and medical experts have determined that she is unlikely to improve," according to court documents.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards maintains records of deaths that occurred while in jail custody, submitted by local jurisdictions.
In Bailey's case, the Dallas County Sheriff's Department did not report her death to the commission because her charges had been dropped, according to the state agency.
Sheriff Marian Brown's office had not yet returned a call, email and text before publication.
Dallas County's Medical Examiner report lists her manner of death as "natural." No cause of death is listed.
"It could all be a technicality, but there's still so many unanswered questions there," said Krish Gundu, Texas Jail Project director. "It might sound fair to them, but the point of recording custody deaths is to understand what might have gone wrong in the jail. Are there policies and procedures that could be improved?"
Gundu said there should be an accounting of how people die.
"They might have died in the hospital, but the technicality of charges being dropped should not should not have any bearing on whether the death is recorded as a custody death or not, because we do need to account for the harms of pre-trial detention."
Julie Buelna had also been in the Dallas County jail in February before she was transported to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, where she died March 7.
Gundu said her family was told, but never shown, video footage that indicated Buelna jumped from a second-story ledge.
Her death initially was not reported to the state because hours after she was taken to the hospital, Dallas County had released her to Collin County custody, from where her arrest warrant had originated, said Ricky Armstrong, the state's jail standards commission executive director.
He said it was a misunderstanding and Buelna's death has now been reported and under investigation by a third party.
Deaths while in custody are required to be reported to the commission within 24 hours.
"Our opinion is it's not a valid release authority, so we told them that's an in-custody death and they need to work that as an in-custody death," he said. "That's why they didn't report it to us because they thought it was a valid release.
Armstrong said the commission took no action "because they acted in good faith."
"They thought it was legit," he said.
Investigations could take six months to a year to conclude.
Bailey's death, he said, will remain unreported unless information surfaces that offers a reason to require reporting and investigation.
That includes a possible criminal act or suicide.
Otherwise, if a doctor lists the death as natural, it is not required to be reported to the state or investigated.
"We've had some other instances where charges are dropped ... and then die a few days later," Armstrong said. "That happens and, unfortunately, there's a loophole in that statute that we feel that we don't have the right, per the statute, to investigate it because it's not in custody."
Armstrong said it's a tough situation.
"I feel for the families, but we've done everything we can do with it."
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