# James Lynas *Man who died in the Sherburne County Jail, Minnesota; subject of an at-issue entry on two deaths in the same cell.* According to the project's at-issue record, James Lynas hanged himself in a cell of the [[Sherburne County Jail]] in Minnesota. The entry states that he had told guards repeatedly that he intended to kill himself. It also states that he died in a blind spot that officers could not see.[^1] The record does not settle the year of his death. The entry flags that Prison Legal News gives 2016, while the Star Tribune and MPR News give 2017.[^1] The same entry records that [[Justice Lee White]] hanged himself in the same cell four years later. It states that the fixes recommended after the first death had not been made. Both matters were settled, one for $2.3 million and one for $1.5 million.[^1] The entry also states that the Lynas family refused a non-disclosure agreement. It credits that refusal as the only reason the White family could cite the Lynas case.[^1] ## Who - **James Lynas**: held in the Sherburne County Jail. According to the at-issue entry, he told guards repeatedly that he intended to kill himself, and he died by hanging in a part of the jail that officers could not see.[^1] - **The Lynas family**: according to the entry, refused a non-disclosure agreement.[^1] ## In the at-issue record Lynas appears in one at-issue entry, AI-Sherburne-009. It sits in the section *The Warehouse County & the Two Offices Edition* of the project's Sherburne package. The entry lists three sources, of court and news kinds, published at mprnews.org, prisonlegalnews.org and startribune.com. None of their URLs is available to this article, so the account of the deaths given here rests on the entry alone.[^1] The record does not establish which settlement figure corresponds to which death.[^1] The project anchors the entry to a White House presidential action of March 2025, *Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos*. Its stated rationale is that the refused non-disclosure agreement is the reason the pattern is visible at all.[^2] The record available to this article does not show that the presidential action itself refers to the Sherburne County Jail.[^2] ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota wiki, *At-issue entry AI-Sherburne-009, Sherburne package* (source brief: Sherburne_Jail_Brief) — states the two deaths in the same cell, Lynas's statements to guards, the blind spot, the unmade fixes, the settlements of $2.3 million and $1.5 million, and the refused non-disclosure agreement. It flags the 2016 (Prison Legal News) versus 2017 (Star Tribune/MPR) conflict. Its listed sources (mprnews.org, prisonlegalnews.org, startribune.com) are not among this article's allowed URLs. [^2]: The White House, *Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos* (March 2025) — presidential action used by the project as the entry's anchor document. It is cited for its title and date only. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/stopping-waste-fraud-and-abuse-by-eliminating-information-silos/