Justin Douglas
Appearances
Death County, PA
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Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Justin Douglas was spending Tuesday evening at a sports bar with a few close friends. We were at Mr. G's Bar and Grill there. Mr. G's is just off the highway, where you would go on a Sunday to watch the Philadelphia Eagles.
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And as he stood there at Mr. G's watching the returns come in, something surprising was happening. Justin started pulling ahead.
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But Justin was about to learn the hard way that there's a major difference between running a campaign and running the county. In Death County, PA, Lamont Jones is fighting to uncover the truth about his cousin's death in Dolphin County Prison. But standing in his way is a reality TV corner and a system built on secrets.
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If you're captivated by stories of betrayal and cover-ups, you should check out Wondery's podcast, Exposed. This series reveals the horrifying crimes of Dr. Robert Haddon, an Ivy League OBGYN who assaulted hundreds of patients while the system protected him.
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From the prestigious halls of Columbia University to the courtrooms where survivors finally got their day in court, this is a story of power, accountability, and the courage it takes to fight back. Follow Exposed on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Exposed exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondery+.
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Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Justin Douglas was preparing to take office, and he wasn't exactly getting a warm reception from his new colleagues.
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Justin wanted to hit the ground running as a commissioner. When he got an email that his official badge was ready, he couldn't wait to go pick it up. He drove into downtown Harrisburg to the county offices, walked past the statue of a cow out front, headed inside the brick building, and took the elevator to the fourth floor to pick up his badge. That had my name on it.
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The badge was just a piece of plastic. The county offices weren't ready for Justin, and it sure seemed like they weren't in any rush to get there.
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Justin had won the election. When he was sworn in and finally got his official badge, he got started.
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But as promised, DCP was one of Justin's top priorities. He wanted to prevent inmate deaths and improve conditions. I asked him how he was going to do that. based on what you've learned up until now, why are there cell deaths and what are some ways that we can actually stop them?
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Staffing, for one thing. Justin said DCP was woefully understaffed. It needed more COs. If we're properly staffed, people can actually get outside in our prison.
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Justin was thinking about improving the quality of food at DCP, investing in better pest control, auditing prime care, Justin said he was ready to see big changes in the way commissioners respond to community questions and criticism.
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When Justin heard about the blackout in the hole, it was another reminder of what this fight was going to be. But he knew that he and Lamont Jones were ready for that fight.
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When Lamont went into the jail to run his programs, he made sure folks inside DCP knew this guy's name. and that Justin was on their side.
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Almost immediately, Justin started going to the jail in an official capacity.
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When the administration and COs had shut the power off in the hole, Justin and Lamont weren't in office yet. But that summer, the lights would go out again at DCP. This time, Justin and Lamont would find themselves in the middle of a full blown crisis. It was a Friday afternoon.
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Justin was ready to spend the weekend with his family, to not think about Dauphin County politics for just a couple days. And then, he got a message from someone on his staff.
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The power was out at DCP. But unlike what Don and Taji experienced in the hole, this wasn't intentional. A utility worker had been digging and accidentally severed a power line. But it was hot, and no power not only meant no lights, it also meant no AC.
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They got a backup generator to the jail. But then Justin found out the backup generator wasn't working. Justin knew there were folks at DCP trying to fix the problem when he went to bed that night.
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A few people from his campaign joined him outside. He was watching the last precincts report their totals. And then he saw it.
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The next morning, Saturday, Justin woke up thinking the power probably was up and running by now. How could it not be?
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The temperature was forecasted to rise to almost 90 degrees in Harrisburg. If the power didn't come on, people in DCP could get heat stroke. Justin couldn't wait any longer. He needed to do more than just get updates. So he called Lamont and they drove over to the jail to see what was really going on. To be clear, this wasn't a requirement of Justin as a county commissioner.
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And for Lamont, this had nothing to do with his position on city council. But they saw a situation where people needed help. When they arrived, the backup generator was finally working after almost 24 hours without power. They both breathed a little sigh of relief, but they wanted to see how everyone was doing.
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Even though the power was on, the AC hadn't caught up. And the heat wasn't the only problem. Because this was an emergency situation, the COs had been working overtime.
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By the time Justin and Lamont arrived, the situation was becoming dangerous.
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The COs ended up moving some of the inmates out of the hottest blocks. relocating them to newer blocks with better ventilation.
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Four people were sent to the hospital. Thankfully, no one died. But these were the conditions when a bad situation could spiral into a lethal one. Eventually, the temperature inside the jail started to cool down.
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Justin and Lamont were preparing to leave. They did a final round and talked to a few more inmates and COs. Justin couldn't help but notice that some individuals who he wanted to see just weren't there.
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Justin and Lamont had been at the jail for eight or nine hours. And in that time, they didn't encounter any senior administrators. While the COs were required to work past the end of their shifts, jail administrators opted to leave. The warden did stay late during the first night the power was out, but he didn't come back until after Justin asked for prison admin to report to DCP.
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The DCP administration were county employees directly under Justin's oversight. Lamont could tell just how seriously Justin took that responsibility.
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The next day, Justin drove to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was going there for a conference with other county commissioners from across the state. The topic, courts and corrections.
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All the votes had been counted. And I was ahead by 42. 42 votes. Justin ended up getting a tattoo of that number on the underside of his right wrist. Slim or not, to Justin, it was proof. His message had landed. People were on board with jail reform.
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When he arrived at DCP, it was dinner time. Justin snapped into helper mode.
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Eventually, the power came back on, and Justin was able to go back to his conference. We asked DCP about the power outage, and they said the administration's exceptional coordination and execution were instrumental in mitigating the crisis effectively. It was clear to Justin, for Dauphin County Prison to treat inmates more humanely, it was going to take a lot more than just wanting to do better.
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And to reach those higher standards, the county would have to exercise some demons from its past.
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That's on the next and final episode of Death County PA. Follow Death County PA on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.
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If you have a tip about a story you think we should investigate, please write to us at wondery.com slash tips. From Wondery and PennLive, this is episode five of six of Death County PA. If you have a tip about a story you think we should investigate, please write to us at wondery.com forward slash tips. Death County PA is written and reported by me, Joshua Vaughn. Producer is Rachel Yong.
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Senior producers are Eric Benson and Chris Siegel. Story editor is Michael May. Associate producer is Emily Locke. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins. Sound design and mixing by Jeff Schmidt. Audio assistance by Daniel William Gonzalez. Sound supervisor is Marcelino Villalpando. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesun Sync. Senior managing producer is Lutta Pandya.
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Managing producers are Heather Beloga and Matt Gant. Senior development editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Development producer is Olivia Weber. Executive producers for Advanced Local are Richard Diamond and Selena Roberts. Executive producers are Nigeri Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent for Wondery.
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But the excitement and energy would quickly shift to horror. Because while Justin was celebrating his victory, corrections officers and jail administrators were taking punishment at Dauphin County Prison to a whole new level. From Wondery and PennLive, I'm Joshua Vaughn. This is Death County, PA.
Death County, PA
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Lamont Jones had first met Justin Douglas during their campaigns, and they quickly recognized they shared a common mission.
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On election night, Lamont was at a community meeting at a Quaker church in uptown Harrisburg. But he was still checking his phone, keeping tabs on the returns. When he saw that Justin had won, he did something that might have come off as a bit rude.
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In Justin, Lamont saw someone who would fight alongside him for values they both believed in. They were in it together.
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Lamont's own election had been a foregone conclusion. He had won the Democratic primary in May and was running unopposed in the general election, which meant as he was congratulating Justin, he didn't even need to look at his own vote tally. He was already a city councilman elect, but that didn't mean he would be able to join city council without a fight.
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They've got decent bar food and a pretty extensive beer list, although Justin doesn't drink. This evening, however, the crowd wasn't gathered for a game. We were watching the poll results come in. Justin's day of truth was finally here.
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Two voters filed a lawsuit on the grounds that Lamont's criminal past should keep him from continuing his campaign. Pennsylvania law forbids anyone convicted of, quote, infamous crimes from holding public office. Judges have long interpreted infamous crimes to include felonies. Lamont had a felony record going back to his days as a drug dealer.
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Lamont's argument worked. He was able to stay on the ballot. But that only bought him a few months. Those felony convictions were still on his record and would still keep him from being sworn in. But Lamont had a plan for that too. He had applied for a pardon, which he hoped would wipe those felonies clean off his record. He'd been rejected several years earlier.
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But it takes a while for a pardon to go through. And Lamont was running out of time. As the process unfolded, Lamont was getting promising signs.
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Then he got the news. He had a pardon hearing scheduled for the day before the general election. It was at the state capitol building.
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Lamont was feeling pretty confident. The pardon board seemed to think he had a good case. And now they seemed impressed he'd managed to win his city council race. But nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to overcoming your criminal record. And so, the pardon board said there was just one more thing. Lamont had $10,000 in outstanding fees from one of his previous court cases.
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After months of worrying about campaign strategy, his meager budget, juggling his many jobs, and talking about prison reform nonstop, it was the night of the election, November 7th, 2023, and the polls had closed in Dauphin County. Justin had entered the county commissioner race a big underdog. He barely made it onto the news, and to be honest, I didn't think he had a chance.
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I kind of felt extorted in that regard. It was a lot of money. Lamont didn't have a choice. Between what he had and crowdfunding the rest, he was able to pay the $10,000. About 10 days before he was scheduled to be sworn in, Lamont got the news. He was pardoned. How did that feel?
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Come January 2nd, Lamont and Justin would both get sworn in and get to work. At the same time Justin Douglas and Lamont Jones were in the closing phases of their campaign, an inmate at DCP named Don Simmers found himself in a rough spot, the hole. or what DCP calls restrictive housing, the place the jail sent inmates it wanted to punish for one reason or another.
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While in DCP, Don was caught with some contraband, so it was off to the hole. Don was led downstairs to the three rows of cells. He was searched before being placed in his cell. All he was allowed to take with him were his clothes and paperwork. The hole was a pretty hellish place. It was so noisy, you could barely get any sleep.
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The out of control was in the air, literally. There was smoke everywhere. Somehow, the guys in the hole were getting their hands on a lot of synthetic marijuana, K2. And because there was pretty much nothing else to do, they were smoking constantly.
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The smoke was wafting from the cells and in the halls. It had an impact on staffing. Some corrections officers tried to avoid the hole and the smoke that came with it. But eventually, the smoke was getting so bad there, they felt they had to intervene.
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The COs would turn the cells upside down looking for marijuana. But the smoking didn't stop. And the COs were getting more and more frustrated. So the shakedowns escalated.
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Paperwork at DCP is important. It could be privileged information that's not meant for anyone else to see other than the client and attorney. Losing access to their paperwork could have an impact on their case. The COs had also taken the jail-issued tablets from the inmates in the hole.
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That meant no access to religious texts, any entertainment, and all communications to and from the outside world. So friends and family outside of DCP had no idea what was going on. It ended up coming down to it was in a uniform and one blanket. But none of that worked. Somehow the inmates in the hole were still getting synthetic marijuana.
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Inmates and former staff at DCP have reported that staff were the ones bringing the drugs and other contraband in. When the COs realized that they were using the lights and outlets in the cell to spark up, the jail leadership tried a new tactic. They cut the power completely. That meant the lights stayed off, and there wasn't heat in the cells either.
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But after nine months of door knocking at campaign events, Justin had started to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.
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It was December in central Pennsylvania, and with only a thin uniform and blanket to protect them after the shakedowns, the people down in the hole were at risk of hypothermia.
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Without light, without heat, it was even worse. Don and the other people in that block had nothing. All he could do was sit in his cell and wait.
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When Don was sitting in his cell in the cold and darkness, nobody on the outside had a clue about what was going on. I didn't either, although I'd heard some rumors from family members. When I asked the jail about those rumors, they didn't tell me anything. Then, one afternoon, I got a phone call.
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Taji Abdullah is in his mid-20s. He had been in DCP for about a year and a half, waiting for trial on gun charges. I knew he had been in the hole recently after talking to his mother. So, I asked him about those rumors.
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That caught me off guard. Turning off the lights and electricity for any amount of days feels wrong. But 17? That feels like torture. I had heard horror stories about DCP, but this was on a whole different level. This incident is now the center of a class action lawsuit against Dauphin County Prison. I ended up talking with about 10 other people who were in the hole when the electricity was cut.
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They all said similar things. I wanted to get this story in the paper. I wondered if the impact would be different now. For years, the county commissioners had been happy to keep the public in the dark about DCP. Now, Justin had been elected commissioner and he had campaigned to end the neglect and suffering at DCP.
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The house was packed because we were really only supposed to fit about 100 people in that room. And I remember it being overflow down to the stairs to the foyer of people that wanted to be a part of that conversation.
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There was an open kind of popcorn, does anyone have any comments to make?
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I don't know that I remember the first time we met. We've been in the same circles for a while.
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I thought the idea of him getting elected would be pretty amazing to see someone who was formerly incarcerated be a city councilman.
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I was amazed how much of the community turned out for his event. Like, he just had such a pulse on the community and people were listening when he was talking. At one point, while Lamont was talking, he turned to Justin. And then I remember him being like, hey, Justin, you got to come share a quick second about your campaign. And I was just like, dude, you don't owe me anything.
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Like, he hadn't endorsed me. I hadn't endorsed him. But I think he was just really inviting. And I think Lamont has the ability to bring people together.
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They shared experiences about how they can't talk to their family because they've been kicked out of their house. They're not safe around their family. And they found a family at the bridge, and it would be a deep consequence to lose that. The Kleenexes were out. It was very moving. And then it was time for a vote.
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Hi, my name is Justin Douglas. I'm running for Dauphin County Commissioner. Good to meet you today. I'd love to talk to you about why I chose to run.
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I would say, I don't know if you're aware, but we've had 18 prisoners die in Dauphin County Prison in the last four years since the last time you voted for county commissioners.
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I think that's unacceptable, and I think we need to remedy that.
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I think there is a good old boys club network in Dauphin County. And my estimation is he was one of the people at the top of that. He was definitely aligned with very powerful people. It seems as if he had personal relationships with just about every vendor in the county.
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They'd tell him, Can't run on prison reform. No one will vote for you. And so we just were like, we're going to do what we're going to do and we'll lose, I guess.
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There was definitely doors I knocked on where it was like, well, that's what they deserve.
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And I just remember like, I think it was a Saturday and I had a whole strategy and plan for how many doors I was gonna knock. And I just didn't wanna get out of bed. I was so exhausted and I just felt like, what am I doing?
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The language of the vote was if we wanted to be an inclusive and welcoming community of the LGBT community.
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Pretty much I had to do something big to get people's attention.
Death County, PA
One Billboard Outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania | 4
We had multiple strategists tell us our billboard was a bad idea and a waste of money.
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When this came, we were like, this is going to be like 40% of our budget. We've got one shot. Like, this was kind of like, you know, your Eminem moment, if you will. You know what I mean? Mom's spaghetti. So, Justin came up with his message. We went with very big, bold letters. 18 prisoners dead since 2019. Vote for change on November 7th.
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I felt deeply, and I think most of my team did, that if we lost, we could at least say we educated a large amount of Dauphin County on a problem of prisoner deaths and that we would have a more educated voter base for the future.
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I started getting texts from people like, oh, I saw your billboard. And what's funny is the smallest thing on the billboard is my face and my name.
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And so if anything, that meeting really solidified us. Like after that meeting, it was very clear who we were, what we were going to do, and where we were
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I was out the door at 5 a.m. probably in my office, preparing, going over my notes for my sermon.
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They revoked his license. They had somebody else ready to come in and lead. They had poached one of my staff members to come in and take over the church to try to pull that power back. which was just really painful. And I went overnight from a salary, a parsonage, security, to nothing. All staff resigned in protest to their decision that they made.
Death County, PA
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And they took everything, all the way down to guitar cables, laptops, bank accounts, properties. They took it all.
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They were loyal to Justin. And the very next Sunday after that, we started a new church. The board reassembled under a new banner called the Belong Collective.
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I coached at the time at CrossFit Hershey. So I coached the 515 class in the morning, 630 class, worked out during the window of time.
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Unrecognized number. Typically, just let it go to voicemail. Move on. I don't know. I was feeling froggy. I was like, we're going to answer this and talk to this telemarketer. And it was someone from Run for Something kind of cold calling me.
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So much of our county government is people who have been in those positions for a long period of time and a new perspective could be helpful.
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And I began to kind of research and I realized, oh shoot, they oversee the prison.
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Like the idea of someone in our prison freezing to death, you know, that I think was like... What's going on? How does our county not have the infrastructure or our prison system not have the infrastructure to ensure that we have temperature control?
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I'm a little bit of, like, a data nerd in some ways. Like, I went and started Googling, like, what does death in custody look like on a national scale or on even, like, a Pennsylvania scale? Justin came across a news report from 2019. In looking at that, it became clear that, like, based on the numbers per thousand, DCP was over double the national average.
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And that was like, how is this happening right in my backyard? You know what I mean?
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I think we had like 10 days to get all the signatures we needed. And it poured down rain for like, seemed like 10 days. And we were just out in the rain, door to door, knocking, getting signatures, me and other volunteers. And we got the signatures we needed to get on the ballot. And then it was like, oh, well, let's see what happens.
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We had advertised that we were going to come together, talk about who we are as a community, who we've been from our beginning, and take a vote for where people feel like we're gonna go.