$1.7 million verdict for undocumented immigrant inmate's untreated penile cancer

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

A jury has hit the state with $1.73 million in damages in a suit by the family of an illegal immigrant who died of penile cancer that went untreated during more than a year in state and federal custody.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury found state prison doctors partly to blame Wednesday for the death of Francisco Castaneda in February 2007. A separate suit against the federal government is tentatively scheduled for trial in April, the family's lawyers said Thursday.

Castaneda entered the United States with his mother in 1982, at age 10, after fleeing El Salvador during that country's civil war. He was convicted in 2005 of possessing methamphetamine and spent about four months in state prison, then was held in federal detention centers while the government moved to deport him and he applied for political asylum.

... State lawyers denied that the physicians were responsible for Castaneda's death and argued that his cancer was untreatable. Lawyers for the family contended his life could have been saved with proper diagnosis and care.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/11/BA3M1GAOB8.DTL&tsp=1