Robbie Deason last talked to his 33-year-old son the day before the presidential election, when his son called from a phone at a south Alabama prison. Before the ballots had been cast, his son was dead.

And he still doesn’t know why. Or how. Or even exactly when.

“She notified me about his death like she was telling me to pick up my dry cleaners,” said Deason, recalling his conversation with a captain from the prison. “I had 900 questions, and she couldn’t answer none of them.”

Deason’s son Nolan had served 11 months when he was found dead in the showers at Fountain Correctional Facility on Nov. 4, 2024. He would have been released just a month later.

Deason said in the months that have passed since his son’s death, he’s gotten no answers from prison officials, no returned phone calls from the warden. A captain at the prison called him to make the death notification.

“They have so many people die per year in the prisons,” Deason told AL.com. “That they don’t have somebody that, you know, would have some decency… this lady never said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She just said that, made sure I was who I was and said, ‘I just am notifying you your son died last night.’”

“And I’m like, ‘What? What happened?’ You know, all these questions, and just nothing.”

Deason is one of nearly 300 families who had a loved one die in Alabama’s lockups last year. The prison system is currently facing several lawsuits, including a federal investigation into prison conditions and the rampant physical and sexual violence that happens inside.

“Grieving and losing your son you love, had for 33 years, is bad enough. But then this is just gas on the fire, man. You know, it’s just… It’s so much more added stress and worry and not knowing.”

“It just seems so inhuman,” said Deason. “You know, it’s my son… just have a little compassion.”

But with a January Executive Order from President Donald Trump — who was officially declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election hours after Nolan Deason was found dead in the shower — the Department of Justice lawsuit might not survive. No one has said if the feds will still use the courts to demand changes to an Alabama system they have argued is both overcrowded and understaffed to the point of being unconstitutionally cruel and dangerous.

No one in the Justice Department nor the Alabama Attorney General’s Office responded to requests for comment about how the case would be affected.

But Charlotte Morrison, senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, said change is past due.

Alabama’s prison crisis is unique because the crisis encompasses the entire system and it’s been happening for a long time, she explained. “I think that we need the staff and the incarcerated people need to know that help is coming… that help is here, that we hear the crisis and that we’re active on the ground.”

The Equal Justice Initiative is a nonprofit legal organization that provides representation to people who have been “illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons,” according to the group. The organization, led by Bryan Stevenson, also handles death penalty cases and prison lawsuits, and offers re-entry services to formerly incarcerated people.

“We don’t care about people. If you are poor, we don’t have to care. That’s why the Department of Justice comes, has to play a role here,” said Morrison.

“We have people going into prison without having an addiction, coming out traumatized, raped, and addicted. We are not making anyone safer by ignoring it and saying, ‘well, you know, your fault.’”

The lawsuit

In December 2020, the federal government under Trump sued Alabama over its prison conditions. In its complaint, signed by then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr, the Department of Justice argued that the state fails to prevent prisoner-on-prisoner violence and sexual abuse, fails to protect prisoners from excessive force, and fails to provide safe prison conditions.

The lawsuit was filed after the federal government did multiple years-long investigations and released two scathing public reports. The investigations found that “prisoners housed in Alabama’s prisons for men are at serious risk of death, physical violence, and sexual abuse” and live in “unsafe and unsanitary conditions.”

The government negotiated with the state before filing the suit but found that Alabama wouldn’t fix the problems. The government wrote in the lawsuit “that constitutional compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means.”

And that’s what is unusual, said Morrison.

“The only thing they’re seeking is constitutionally run prisons, and that’s so unusual because you have a plaintiff that is seeking the same thing that defendants say they want, which is safe prisons. Safe prisons for their staff, safe prisons for incarcerated people,” she said during a conversation at EJI’s Montgomery office.

Morrison said in prison lawsuits, progress often comes in the form of a consent decree or a settlement that’s overseen by a judge.

“Reform can happen very, very quickly under the consent decree that’s being monitored by the judge,” Morrison said.

That’s what happened at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.

The nonprofit investigated widespread claims of sexual abuse at Tutwiler, and in 2012 filed a complaint with the Justice Department. The next year, the federal government launched their own investigation. The feds learned that Tutwiler had “a history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment,” and spelled out changes the state could make to avoid a lawsuit.

In 2015, after a year of public scrutiny, the state and the DOJ reached an agreement on reforms to be monitored by the judge. And late last year, both parties asked the court to end most of those provisions. Reports from court-appointed monitors show the prison has complied with almost all of the requirements at Tutwiler over the last six years.

But the men’s prisons, according to the 2020 lawsuit, “remain extremely overcrowded, prisoner-on-prisoner homicides have increased, other forms of prisoner-on-prisoner violence including sexual abuse remains unabated, the physical facilities remain inadequate, use of excessive force by security staff is common, and staffing rates remain critically and dangerously low.”

A response from the state’s lawyers in court records said the lawsuit contained “vague allegations” and that its descriptions of violence inside the prisons are “isolated examples.”

What happens now?

That lawsuit continued into Joe Biden’s administration, followed by years of back-and-forth between the state and the feds over what should be considered in evidence, who should be deposed and more. Last year, a judge said the case should be ready for trial in April 2026.

Yet in January, Trump issued a freeze on Department of Justice civil rights cases.

The letter, sent on U.S. Department of Justice letterhead and from the chief of staff to the attorney general, had the subject line “Litigation freeze.”

The letter ordered that attorneys in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”

In a separate memo, released the same day, the chief of staff to the attorney general wrote that the Trump administration didn’t want attorneys to make any new settlements or consent decrees.

Neither representatives from the federal government, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, nor the Alabama Attorney General’s Office responded to requests for comment from AL.com as to how the order affects the litigation.

But Gov. Kay Ivey’s communications director said in an email, “The DOJ litigation against the state of Alabama remains pending as of today. In the meantime, the state and ADOC are fully committed to ensuring constitutional conditions in our prisons, and nothing will change that going forward.”

A crisis behind bars

Kerry Presnell Sr. knows nothing can bring back his son. But, he told AL.com over the phone, he wants everyone responsible for his son’s death held accountable.

Kerry Presnell Jr., was killed at Elmore Correctional Facility in November. He had been in and out of prison for years, the elder Presnell said. This last stint was for a parole violation, after Presnell Jr. had been caught with drugs.

Things were going well though, Presnell Sr. said. His son would have been up for parole this month. And had he been alive, Presnell Sr. thought he would have been released.

But, on Nov. 14, 2024, Presnell Sr. said, a captain at Elmore called to say his son had been stabbed. But then, when called back, the captain said the younger Presnell had overdosed. When Presnell Sr. grilled the officer about what exactly happened, he said, the captain hung up.

About 20 phone calls and days later, Presnell Sr. said, the warden called to say several incidents had happened: Presnell Jr. had been beaten by a group of inmates that day and went to the infirmary. He declined to stay in the infirmary and was sent back down to his dorm. At some point that night, he got up to go to the bathroom and collapsed. After officers helped him up, he went into the bathroom, where he died.

Presnell Sr. said his son’s body was sent for an autopsy at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. But he hasn’t yet received the results, and officials at the prison still say the killing is under investigation. He said the warden told him that his son died from brain and spinal cord damage from being beaten with a mop handle.

So far, there have been no federal measures taken in the prisons to stop what family members like Presnell Sr. describe as horrific conditions.

“I believe with all my heart if they would have taken him to the free world hospital, he would be alive today,” Presnell Sr. told AL.com. He doesn’t believe his son would have rejected medical care, and he also doesn’t think prison medical staff should have been allowed to send someone in such a poor medical state back to their dorm.

And he isn’t the only one waiting for answers.

Prison data, compiled by AL.com, shows from October 2023 through September 2024 — the 2024 fiscal year — there were 292 death investigations opened inside Alabama prisons.

During the same period, there were 738 sexual abuse investigations. Some of those incidents involved staff, but the majority were inmate-on-inmate incidents. More than 30 of those sexual abuse incidents involved group attacks, with 4 or more people.

“This is a prison. This is not happening in some dark alley or in someone’s private home,” Morrison added.

Such abuse is often used as punishment for drug debts, or happens while inmates are using drugs. In 2024, the prison system documented over 1,300 cases of controlled substances inside lockups.

In their reports, federal investigators said victims of a sexual assault in prison get blamed for what happened to them. They get thrown in segregation or are punished for drug use that happened prior to the assault.

“It is the height of irresponsibility. It is just a grotesque culture to tolerate that and have no response whatsoever,” Morrison said. “It’s contributing to this culture of violence in the prisons to have that kind of response.”

And the prisons are deadly. Researchers at EJI “found that people are murdered in Alabama’s prisons at a rate 513% higher than Alabamians who are not incarcerated.”

The same data showed the fatal overdose rate in the state’s prisons was 1,629% higher than the rate for Alabamians who weren’t imprisoned. The suicide rate for Alabama inmates was 135% higher.

Morrison said those figures– the homicide rate, the mortality rate, and the sexual abuse rate– show the prisons are in a security crisis.

A $1 billion prison

Construction continues on a mega-prison for men in Elmore County. That prison is slated to have 4,000 beds, along with facilities for medical care, mental health care, and educational opportunities.

And it’s going to cost more than $1 billion, even though it will do nearly nothing to address overcrowding.

The state legislature also approved a second mega-prison in Escambia County. Construction hasn’t started on that site, as the state is still looking for a way to pay for it.

The mega-prisons won’t add beds in a jam-packed system, as older prisons are set to close when they open.

But facilities have been a focus of the state’s prison crisis for years.

“The violations are severe, systemic, and exacerbated by serious deficiencies… and a high level of violence that is too common, cruel, of an unusual nature, and pervasive,” said the government.

In its lawsuit, the federal government said the state doesn’t have a “preventative maintenance plan” for the men’s prisons, that each of the prisons have “serious plumbing, HVAC, and electrical issues,” and none of the prisons had, at the time, a functional fire alarm system.

The buildings “do not provide adequate humane conditions.” There are broken locks and cameras that don’t work, they wrote. They called the conditions “decrepit,” unsanitary and unsafe.

The feds said they saw spiders and bugs falling from ceilings, rats in kitchens, cockroaches running rampant and more. There were showers covered in mold, toilets backed up, floors covered in sewage.

And while those examples show what the government called unconstitutional conditions, there are safety issues, too. The 2019 investigation said that prisoners often had to wait for an extended amount of time at a gate at Bibb, “often bleeding profusely, while staff searched for a key to open the gate” that led to the infirmary.

Disturbing examples from each facility were listed in the lawsuit, encompassing 15 pages. There was discolored water at Bullock, an outbreak of scabies at Limestone, warped doors at Staton, and temperature issues so severe at Donaldson that one prisoner baked to death in his cell in 2020 with a body temperature of 109 degrees.

In many prisons, inmates have to go days without showers. At St. Clair, one inmate had to use his boxers to clean himself for more than a week because there was no toilet paper.

At Ventress, buzzards infested the water tank to feed on drowned rats and birds that were floating in the tank.

The investigation offered solutions, but said Alabama “has not made this easy fix” despite acknowledging the “decrepit conditions” for years.

And the feds said the expensive, new buildings that are in the works won’t solve Alabama’s problem with understaffing, violence, corruption, drug abuse, sexual attacks and “non-existent investigations.”

“And new facilities,” said federal investigators, “would quickly fall into a state of disrepair if prisoners are unsupervised and largely left to their own devices, as is currently the case.”

Families want answers

Presnell doesn’t want money for his son’s death. But he does want answers, and he wants accountability for the people who beat his son, the staff who didn’t treat his medical needs, and the officers who didn’t intervene in the beating.

“They know they was wrong for not taking him (to the hospital) and not keeping him safe in there,” Presnell Sr. said. “I feel they knew they screwed up and let my son die.”

“I believe with all my heart he would be out already, he’d be here today, if they only took him to the hospital. If only they got to him before that man was beating and beating and beating him with a stick.”

Despite the death toll at ADOC, the cause and manner of death is often unknown for many inmates. It’s not just the stories that are incomplete: Some dead inmates have been returned from autopsies with missing organs, without a heart or a brain, causing all sorts of distress for families.

In 2024, the University of Alabama at Birmingham ended its agreement with the prison system to provide autopsies. The department had a longstanding deal with UAB for post-mortem examinations, but it ended after families began speaking out and suing the institution, claiming their loved ones’ bodies were coming back from autopsies missing organs.

Some of those families were able to retrieve those organs by picking them up in specimen bags from UAB. Others have never been found.

A lawyer for UAB said at a recent court hearing that under the agreement between UAB and the state, UAB was allowed to keep organs for testing purposes. He didn’t clarify what type of testing.

State law demands inmates who have a suspicious death, or one from unnatural cases, must be autopsied, and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences is handling those now. Deaths that don’t result in an autopsy get a toxicology screening before the body is released to the family.

“Although the department previously contracted with UAB hospital to conduct autopsies on suspected overdose or natural deaths; UAB terminated its long-standing agreement … Since that time, the department has made numerous inquiries but has been unable to find another vendor to provide autopsies for ADOC inmates who died of natural causes or suspected overdoses,” a prison spokesperson said in March.

Families of inmates who die behind bars have tried to get the attention of lawmakers, federal investigators and anyone who they think could help so they can find out what happened to their loved one.

A new report from the ACLU of Alabama showed that 105 prison deaths in 2024 were listed as being from an unknown cause or were under investigation. The report cited a lack of transparency in death data, and the organization called for the prison system to require autopsies for all who die in custody and update its definitions of death.

The report showed that in the second half of 2024, ADOC categorized 22 deaths as “Autopsy Not Authorized.”

Drugs landed the younger Presnell in prison, his father said. But he thinks dying because of his addiction was too far.

“I just want to know why they didn’t do anything,” he said. “I want them to know how I feel about them letting my son die.”

What’s next?

Like the families of other inmates who died in Alabama prisons, the Deasons and the Presnells are still waiting for answers.

Nolan Deason was a good man, his father said, and a good son. But the system failed him.

The elder Deason said there weren’t enough beds in drug treatment centers, which maybe could have helped his son avoid prison. And when Nolan Deason went to prison, the corrections system failed to keep him safe.

“There was weeks that went by I had, I didn’t know anything…It makes you just want to scream. You get so mad. I mean, it wouldn’t do any good,” he said. “I felt like going and seeing if the governor would see me. It’s just like, somebody talk to me.”

Morrison with EJI said she’s still holding out hope things can improve, because the current system abides far too much death with little consequence, that too often people in Alabama commit some relatively small or nonviolent crime and still pay with their lives.

“You’re just saying we can deal out death sentences to families anytime as a punishment,” Morrison said. “That is the kind of indifference that allows these systems to become this corrupt.”