The Hinds County Detention Center has been under a federal consent decree since 2016. Elizabeth E. Simpson, the federal court appointee tasked with monitoring the consent decree, reviewed the video footage of how Michael Richardson died and wrote to the court about it on Oct. 28, 2021, identifying this incident as the latest in a series of deaths at the jail that year. Malik Richardson, 22, said that his father unexpectedly dying in jail left a hole in his heart.