$33 Million Verdict for Man Who Begged for a Doctor for Twelve Days in Ottawa County Jail and Died
After trial: Affirmed in full. The jury returned $33,000,000 in compensatory damages on September 8, 2023, and the Tenth Circuit affirmed on April 21, 2026 (Nos.
Won by Smolen & Roytman.
Terral Ellis II, 26, walked into the Ottawa County Jail voluntarily on an outstanding warrant. He developed bronchopneumonia and spent twelve days asking for medical care for seizures, sweating and pain. Jail video captured staff and the jail nurse mocking him. He died of septic shock on October 22, 2015.
What happened
On October 10, 2015, Terral B. Ellis II turned himself in at the Ottawa County Jail in Miami, Oklahoma. He was 26. There was an outstanding warrant and he surrendered on it voluntarily.
Over the days that followed he developed bronchopneumonia. He asked for medical care repeatedly, for seizures, for uncontrollable sweating, for pain in his back, his ribs and his internal organs.
The jail's own video is what made this case. It captured staff and the jail nurse mocking him as he asked, and the nurse threatening to restrain him.
On October 21 he reportedly had a seizure. He was moved into an administrative segregation cell, which the jail characterized as medical observation. He died the following day, October 22, 2015, of septic shock caused by acute bronchopneumonia.
Only one claim went to the jury: a Fourteenth Amendment deliberate indifference claim against the Sheriff of Ottawa County in his official capacity. After an eight-day trial the jury found for the estate on September 8, 2023 and awarded $33 million in compensatory damages.
The county filed a series of post-judgment motions. The district court denied them. On April 21, 2026 the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court in full, in a published opinion.
It is reported as the largest compensatory award in an Oklahoma civil rights case. The reason a figure of this size can stand against a county at all is that this was a federal claim. Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act caps what a county can be made to pay on a state-law tort claim at a fraction of this, and every large Oklahoma verdict against a public body has to be run through that limit. A claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is not subject to it.
What happens next is a matter of public record and of local politics: in August 2026 Ottawa County asked its voters to approve a sales tax increase to pay the judgment.
The estate was represented by Robert M. Blakemore, who argued the appeal, with Daniel Smolen with him on the briefs, of Smolen and Roytman in Tulsa.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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