Until last spring, Justin Faircloth supported his family of three by working on the assembly line at the Honda plant in Talladega County. But his life was upended when he found out that he was dying.

In April 2019, the 33-year-old Odenville man was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver. He underwent several rounds of chemotherapy. But in December, Faircloth was booked into the Etowah County Jail on a probation revocation after being arrested and charged with crimes including drug possession and resisting arrest in the preceding months.

Since then he has been transferred to state custody. But he has not received chemotherapy or other necessary cancer treatments since October, according to his oncologist, Dr. Aasim Sehbai of Alabama Cancer Care in Anniston, who says that Faircloth's condition is worsening with each passing day.

“I haven’t received any treatment. They haven’t even let me speak to my doctor since the 17th of January,” Faircloth said in a call from Limestone Correctional Facility last week.

"They have me in [general] population and I have no immune system. I have problems digesting and I've got some bleeding in my stool."

Faircloth's situation is extreme, but it demonstrates the difficulty many inmates have getting access to sufficient medical care in jails and prisons across Alabama. For years, inmates and their loved ones have complained about inadequate care. Many have sued the Alabama Department of Corrections and local sheriff's offices for failing to provide needed treatment and protect people in their care from illnesses, medical complications and even death.

Beginning in December, Faircloth was held for a month in the Etowah County Jail in northeast Alabama, less than 40 miles from his wife, Amber, and their four-year-old daughter. He was transferred next to Kilby State Correctional Facility, a state prison near Montgomery, where he was incarcerated for two weeks. Then he was transported to Limestone, a state prison near Athens in north Alabama. He remains behind bars at Limestone, over 100 miles from his home and family.

The Alabama Department of Corrections, like the Etowah County Sheriff's Office before it, has not taken Faircloth for the chemotherapy and other treatment he needs to slow the progression of his cancer, according to Sehbai.

Today, Faircloth is one of dozens of inmates housed in a crowded open section of a dorm at Limestone. He says that he has lost over 20 pounds in recent weeks, that he is cold, dehydrated and hungry, and that he has experienced a wide range of symptoms since his incarceration, from severe pain and constipation to lightheadedness and nausea.

For the first seven weeks of his incarceration, Faircloth says he did not have access to the opioid painkillers, anti-nausea pills and other medications most people with stage 4 cancers rely on to keep the symptoms at bay. Instead, he says he was sometimes given ibuprofen, the anticoagulant Eliquis, and Colace, a stool softener. Earlier this month, he was put on hydrocodone, the first time he has been able to take a painkiller stronger than ibuprofen since he was booked into the Etowah County Jail in December.

Sehbai has repeatedly called for Faircloth to be released, or at least given access to adequate treatment.

"I feel like his care has been compromised. If he doesn’t get treatment, which is already delayed, he can really die in the next month or two," Sehbai said in a phone interview late last month. "With proper treatment he could live two or three years, even up to five years. One way or the other, he needs to get treatment."

Justin Faircloth receives a chemotherapy treatment last year.Courtesy Amber Faircloth

'Kindly be lenient'

In Alabama, inmates serving long sentences who suffer from severe medical conditions can be released from jail or prison before the end of their sentenced terms only under specific circumstances. Sometimes, as AL.com and ProPublica reported last year, sheriffs urge judges to grant their release from local jails on “medical bond” in order to avoid paying their medical bills.

But once they reach the state prison system, the only ways prisoners can typically be released early are if they are pardoned, if a judge grants their release, if the Department of Corrections grants them a medical furlough, or if they are paroled by the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles either via the normal parole process or medical parole. Allowing inmates to be released from prison early due to medical issues is often referred to as compassionate release.

In a Jan. 13 letter to Etowah County Circuit Judge Sonny Steen, who presided over Faircloth's case, Sehbai made a plea for mercy. Steen did not respond to requests for comment, and Sehbai said he did not receive a response from the judge.

"I will request that the Judge kindly be lenient with him as he has advanced stage 4 colon cancer and a short survival," Sehbai wrote to the judge.

Four days later, Faircloth was transported to Kilby.

Etowah County Sheriff Jonathon Horton said in a phone interview that the judge made the call to move Faircloth to state custody. He said Steen determined that Faircloth should remain behind bars because he is a chronic offender.

A self-described former drug addict, Faircloth has been charged with numerous crimes over the course of his life, including theft, burglary, drug possession and manufacture, writing bad checks, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and others. He was arrested three times over the four months before he was taken into custody in December, for charges including resisting arrest, drug possession and violating probation.

"He's using his sickness as an excuse to get out of jail over and over again. In layman's terms, he just ran out of his chances. So the judge revoked [his probation] and says he has to serve his days," Horton said.

"Judge Steen said, basically, because of his offenses, he can't just keep cutting him loose and hoping he'll do the right thing.'"

The earliest date Faircloth can be released, barring such an intervention, is April 1, 2031, according to the DOC’s online inmate records. Without treatment, he’ll be lucky to make it to 2021, Sehbai said.

DOC spokeswoman Samantha Rose said via email that while the department "can present a request for medical furlough as established with specific eligibility criteria" as outlined in state law and departmental regulations, "ADOC does not have the authority to release an inmate under a compassionate release, that is a decision made by the courts when requested and petitioned by the inmate’s attorney."

Last month, the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles sent an email response to a written request by Amber Faircloth for relief for her husband.

"The Board can only consider someone for parole if they are eligible under the law. Mr. Faircloth's file is being processed and he will receive a notice with his parole consideration eligibility date," the letter, which was signed only by "Board Operations Staff," states.

"However, for any health-related concerns you need to contact the Alabama Department of Corrections. The Bureau of Pardons and Paroles cannot arrange for any health-related treatment."

Justin Faircloth holds his daughter last year.Courtesy Amber Faircloth

'Cancer don't wait for nobody'

Justin and Amber Faircloth were in relatively good spirits when they sat down for a late breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Trussville one chilly day in October.

His medical bills were piling up because he had recently lost his Medicaid coverage due to a slight monthly income increase. He had already been billed for tens of thousands dollars worth of life-saving procedures and treatments, and he was warily anticipating future costs totaling many thousands more.

A month later, the couple laid out copies of some of those bills on the table in a booth at a Waffle House in Irondale, a ten-minute drive from the house in the hills on the outskirts of Birmingham where they were temporarily staying. The numbers were eye-popping: $16,233.87 due to Regional Medical Center in Anniston for charges incurred between April and June; $742 for an October ambulance ride; a $1,314 balance with Surgical Clinic of Anniston.

Faircloth had no insurance, he was very sick and he was facing jail time. His wife was struggling to care for him, make a living and provide for their young daughter.

“I’m really concerned. His liver is just destroyed. He has no immune system with stage 4 colon cancer. It would be bad even if he just got a cold,” she said.

And yet the Faircloths were quick to laugh as they discussed their lives over waffles and orange juice, and they seemed hopeful about the future, despite all the challenges they faced. They were unaware that the worst trials were yet to come.

Today, Justin Faircloth is behind bars and his wife has dedicated most of her non-working hours to trying to find a way to get him proper medical attention.

Calls to advocacy groups and lawyers have gone unanswered or led nowhere. The letter Sehbai sent to Judge Steen, which noted that Faircloth had not had a chemotherapy treatment since October, has gone unanswered.

Rose, the DOC spokeswoman, said via email that Faircloth "will continue to receive his prior free world care treatment and any future treatment as ordered by his treating physicians while" he remains in state prison.

But that has not been his experience to date, according to Sehbai and Amber Faircloth, who said that the department waited until nearly a month after he was transferred to state custody to take him to an initial screening appointment on Monday at a cancer treatment center in Huntsville that he had never visited before.

"They took Justin to a different cancer treatment center and they took his blood and didn’t know anything about his medical stuff and said it could be another two weeks to a month before a chemo treatment," she said Monday.

Justin Faircloth confirmed that version of events.

“They didn’t transport me to any of my prior providers. I haven’t seen Dr. Sehbai since the Monday before I went to Etowah County,” he said in a call from Limestone last week.

"It's all new faces and they have no clue what's going on with me. [The doctor at the Huntsville cancer center] was asking me what side the cancer was on and what was going on."

If Faircloth doesn't receive chemotherapy for another full month, that would bring the time since he has gone without a chemo treatment to more than five months.

"I'm not receiving the proper medical care. By now, I should’ve already had at least three treatments since I've been locked up and I haven't received one," he said.

“They’re doing enough to make it look like they’re doing something. But [the Huntsville doctor] told me it could be another month before I get treatment. And I said, ‘You know, as well as I do, that cancer don’t wait for nobody.’”