Death, Illness, and Notification in Minnesota Prisons

There are two directions a death or a serious illness can travel through a prison wall, and a family usually only thinks about it when it is already happening.

One direction is from the outside in. Someone in the family is dying or has died, and you need the prison to tell your incarcerated person, and you are wondering whether they can be there for it. The other direction is from the inside out. Your person is the one who is sick, or who has died in custody, and you are trying to find out what happened and what you are allowed to do. This article walks both directions for Minnesota, run by the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

I am going to tell you something up front, because I learned it the hard way and I do not want it to land on you cold. An approval that has been granted is not the same as your person being there. Those are two different things, and the gap between them is where families get hurt.

When the Death or Illness Is on the Outside

If someone in the family is gravely ill or has died and you want your incarcerated person notified, the channel is the facility, usually through the chaplain or the assigned caseworker. Call the institution, explain the emergency, and be ready to provide verification, such as the funeral home's information or a death certificate for a death, or a hospital or physician confirmation for a serious illness.

Notification is the part that tends to work. Whether your person can leave the prison to be there is a separate and much harder question.

Attending a Funeral or a Deathbed Visit in Minnesota

Minnesota handles emergency trips through furloughs and escorted visits, and it has a rule that families need to understand clearly, because it forces a choice. Read this as the reality, not as a promise.

You get one, not both. In Minnesota, an incarcerated person may be allowed to attend either a deathbed visit or a funeral visit for an immediate family member, but not both. A deathbed visit is allowed only if approved, only at a health care facility, in private, and only when a health care provider has determined that death is imminent. A funeral visit is allowed only if approved, only at a public facility before or after the public service, only on the death of an immediate family member, and only if the person did not already have a deathbed visit. This is an important planning point. If your relative is dying and your person uses a deathbed visit, that generally uses up the one trip, and there will not also be a funeral trip. Talk with your person and the family about which one matters most before deciding.

It is escorted and in custody. These visits are conducted under guard. Expect your person to be transported and supervised by correctional staff and, in practice, restrained, with the visit limited to a short, private period. This is hard to hear, but I would rather you know it than be shocked in the moment.

It stays in Minnesota. The furlough statute lets the commissioner furlough an inmate to a point within the state, and these emergency visits are in-state. If the funeral or the dying relative is out of state, an in-person trip is generally not available, so plan around that.

Now the part I promised you.

I was told I had a five-hour furlough to attend my mother's funeral. I was told to get dressed and wait for the escort. I got dressed. I waited. The escort never came. Word going around was that the warden had been moved or was on leave, and the assistant warden denied it. Nobody walked up to me with a form. The day just passed. What I got, in the end, was a free phone call.

I tell you that not to make you bitter before you start, but to make you smart. An approval that exists on paper is not a person standing at a graveside. Administrators change. Acting wardens reverse decisions. Escort details fall through. If you are pinning the family's grief on the hope that they will physically be there, you are building on sand. Plan the service around the family that can be there. If your person makes it, that is a mercy. If they do not, you were not depending on it, and the grief is heavy enough without that.

Ask about a phone call at minimum. Even when a trip is denied or impossible, the facility can usually allow a call. Ask the chaplain or caseworker directly, and ask early.

When the Illness or Death Is on the Inside

The other direction is harder, because you have less control and the information comes slower.

If your person is seriously ill in custody. Push for medical information, knowing that medical privacy rules limit what staff will share unless the incarcerated person has authorized release of information to you. Encourage your person, while able, to sign a release naming you. If the condition is terminal or grave, learn about Minnesota's conditional medical release now, not later.

Minnesota conditional medical release. Minnesota law allows the commissioner of corrections to release an inmate who suffers from a grave illness or medical condition, before the scheduled release date, when release poses no threat to the public. The Department calls this conditional medical release, and its policy describes a terminal condition as one expected to result in death within about twelve months. In deciding, the commissioner weighs the person's age, medical condition, health care needs, custody classification, level of risk, and the available community supervision and placement. Practically, the prison's health services staff are supposed to identify people who may qualify, but you should not wait for the system to act on its own. The most useful thing a family can do is push the medical side: make sure the prison's medical staff know about the diagnosis and prognosis, ask in writing that your person be evaluated for conditional medical release, document everything, and consider an attorney. If the person's condition later improves or can be managed in the prison, the release can be rescinded.

If your person dies in custody. The Department notifies the family using the emergency contact your person has on record, which is exactly why that contact must be correct now. Make sure the listed person is reachable and will tell the rest of the family.

Investigation, autopsy, and the medical examiner. Minnesota uses a county coroner or medical examiner system, and the law treats a death in a correctional facility seriously. A death in custody must be reported and investigated, and by Minnesota law, for deaths occurring within a facility licensed by the Department of Corrections, a board-certified forensic pathologist must review each death and perform an autopsy on all unnatural, unattended, or unexpected deaths, and others as needed. In addition, the commissioner of corrections may require that all deaths of people in Department of Corrections custody be reviewed by an independent, contracted, board-certified forensic pathologist. So a prison death in Minnesota gets an independent forensic look, which can matter to families who want to be sure the cause of death is examined properly.

Notice to the family about an autopsy. Minnesota law directs the coroner or medical examiner, as soon as possible and generally within 24 hours of discovering the body, to make a good-faith effort to notify the representative of the decedent, the person with the right to control disposition of the body, of the intended autopsy, and to provide written materials about the death investigation process, including Minnesota's law on religious objections to autopsies. If your family has a religious objection to autopsy, raise it immediately, because it is considered on a case-by-case basis.

Claiming the body and getting answers. The body is released to the representative of the decedent, generally the next of kin, who arranges for a funeral home to receive it once the medical examiner's work allows. Make your intention to claim your person known promptly, and be clear about who the legal next of kin is, because disputes between family members slow everything down. Families can obtain the death certificate through Minnesota vital records once it is completed. If the family cannot afford a funeral, ask the funeral home and the county about burial assistance.

What Families Can Do Before a Crisis

Most of the pain in these situations comes from decisions that were never made in calm times. A few things you can do now, while no one is dying:

Make sure your person has the correct emergency contact and next of kin recorded with the Department, and keep it current. This determines who the prison calls.

Have your person sign a release of information naming the family members who should be allowed to speak with medical staff. Without it, privacy rules will keep you in the dark.

Understand the one-visit rule. If a relative is dying, decide as a family whether a deathbed visit or a funeral visit matters more, because in Minnesota your person generally will not get both.

If your person has a terminal or grave condition, do not wait. Ask the prison's medical staff to evaluate your person for conditional medical release, document the diagnosis, and consider an attorney.

Keep the funeral home's contact information ready, both to verify an outside death so your person can be notified, and to claim your person if they die inside.

State Resources

Minnesota Department of Corrections: contact the institution directly; use the DOC website and offender locator for facility, chaplain, and caseworker contacts.

Minnesota Department of Corrections, Conditional Medical Release: for early release of a gravely or terminally ill incarcerated person.

County Medical Examiner or Coroner: for cause of death, autopsy, notification, and release of remains in the county where the death occurred.

Minnesota Office of Vital Records: for certified copies of the death certificate.

Minnesota 211: dial 2-1-1 for grief support, funeral assistance resources, and counseling referrals.