EARLY ARREST INSPIRES CAREER

When E. Clay Parker was Detained for No Reason, He Decided to Become a Lawyer.

By Chris Cobbs of The Sentinel Staff

In the summer of 1960, a young man and his wife sat in a Mercury sedan admiring the moonlit ocean when a suspicious police officer rapped on the door.

The officer ordered the man to get out and put his hands on the roof of the car. The man was arrested and detained at a police station in Jacksonville for eight hours before the charges were dropped and he was released.

On that night, E. Clay Parker decided to become a lawyer. More significantly, he decided to put up a lifelong fight against the abuse of authority.

Parker, 60, is an Orlando attorney whose practices has attracted regional attention as a result of his representing the family of Daniel B. Sagers, an inmate who died last year of injuries suffered at the Osceola County Jail.

Parker and Osceola County are in the process of settling the case. In fact, the County Commission could approve an agreement Monday. Originally, the civil suit asked for $20 million from the county and other parties, including the Sheriff's Office.

Parker also was part of the team of attorneys that reached a $3 million settlement with Orange County in the death of Susan Bennett, an inmate who died during a 12-day jail stay last year.

Bennett, 42, died of a heart attack after jail workers left her to vomit and defecate uncontrollable for 12 days without treatment, said a county investigation.

"The one and only time I had to sit in jail was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life," Parker said. "I was outraged. I had been a child of the 1950s who thought police officers could do no wrong."

Instead, said Parker, he learned the utter futility and powerlessness of any resident at the whim of someone authorized to carry a badge and a weapon.

"There are 1,000 Danny Sagers out there," Parker said. "These are the powerless people who come within the power of the state and fall into the subculture of being victimized."

If Sagers had survived his encounter with Osceola corrections officers, no one would have paid much attention to his case, Parker said.

Sagers would have been seen as an inmate who was in jail for a reason, and there would have been no inquiries into conditions at the jail.

"So Danny's death has far-reaching implications beyond this one case," Parker said.

The high-profile Sagers case has put Parker in the limelight.

The attorney said he received dozens of calls from inmates in Osceola and Orange counties, describing abuse by guards and seeking help.

Some of the calls warranted inquiry and some didn't, but the common thread, Parker said, "was an utter and complete sense of powerlessness."

Parker said he never thought that jail should be a pleasant place or that discipline isn't necessary.

"But it bugs me to see people stripped of dignity and mistreated," he said.

Early in his career, Parker said he represented a half-dozen victims charged with capital offenses. One involved a young black Bethune-Cookman College student charged with raping a woman on spring break.

"The case was tried before an all-white jury, yet we were able to get an acquittal," Parker said.

"What I learned, early in my career, is how authority in the form of police, local or state government has a way of rendering people powerless, and that made me angry. I decided I couldn't just stand idly by and watch."

Copyright 2000, Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.