DALLAS (AP) - A state district court jury has cleared Dallas County of negligence in the death 20 years ago of a county jail inmate.
Sons of Charles Ray Sempe had filed the lawsuit, contending that the county violated Sempe's civil rights by permitting unsafe jail conditions.
But by a vote of 10-2 late Monday, the jury gave the sons nothing.
Sempe was 30 when he was booked in the Dallas County jail in 1990 on a misdemeanor drug charge. The Dallas Morning News reports he was killed minutes later when inmate Darrell Hartfield knocked Sempe's head into a metal door frame after Sempe changed the channel on a television.
Hartfield was convicted of second-degree murder for the killing.
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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
