Steven Ray Dismuke of Jakin, GA, had told inmates that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but he had been placed in the general population. Dismuke also said he was not taking his medication since he had been arrested some 10 days earlier by Shelby County deputies. "This event has been reported in the press as a death that is under investigation," said Legal Schnauzer publisher Roger Shuler. "But there is nothing mysterious about it. Steve Dismuke jumped to his death some 27 feet off a two-story cell unit and he had told inmates that he was bipolar and schizophrenic and was not on his medication. That's just one of several alarming circumstances surrounding this death." Shuler said Dismuke's death also raises issues about jail design, inmate surveillance and traffic stop procedures by Shelby County deputies.
Shuler has been housed in the Shelby County Jail since Oct. 23 based on a lawsuit by Republican political figure Rob Riley who seeks to have posts removed about his extramarital affair with lobbyist Liberty Duke. Law dating some 230 years to the early days of the country say that such prior restraint on publication is unlawful, but Shuler has been held in civil contempt for failing to remove the items even though there's been no discovery in the case and no final judgment that the material is false and defamatory. Shuler has spent his birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas in jail and has been now incarcerated for more than two months.
Here is the obituary for Steven Ray Dismuke: Steven Ray Dismuke Obituary
