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The lawsuit, filed by Jay-Z's lawyer Alex Spiro
in the U.S. District Court in Greenville, Mississippi, says
"these deaths are a direct result of Mississippi's utter
disregard for the people it has incarcerated and their
constitutional rights," according to the report https://nbcnews.to/2tmTUm7.
Spiro, on behalf of Jay-Z and hip-hop artist Yo Gotti, wrote a
letter to Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant and DOC Commissoner
Pelicia Hall dated Jan. 9 saying that they were "prepared to
pursue all potential avenues to obtain relief for the people
living in Mississippi's prisons and their families," according
to NBC News.
The letter added that the deaths were as a result of years of
severe understaffing and neglect at Mississippi's prisons, NBC
said.
"As Mississippi has incarcerated increasing numbers of people,
it has dramatically reduced its funding of prisons. As a result,
prison conditions fail to meet even the most basic human
rights," NBC reported, citing the contents of the letter.
The lawsuit, filed against the head of the Mississippi
Department of Corrections and the warden of the state
penitentiary in Parchman, seeks damages for the prisoners and an
order forcing the department to address the issues, mainly by
increasing staff and cleaning up sewage, celebrity website TMZ
reported http://bit.ly/3a5ExPz.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections and Spiro's law firm
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP did not immediately
respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
(Reporting by Rama Venkat in Bengaluru, Editing by William
Maclean)
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