Second Vermont man this year dies in Mississippi prison – VTDigger

A second Vermont man this year has died in a Mississippi prison. 

Shawn Sears, 56, of Whiting, was found unresponsive in his cell Wednesday morning before medical staff attempted to give him emergency treatment, according to a press release from the Vermont Department of Corrections. 

“Mr. Sears was subsequently pronounced deceased,” the release said. 

Sears’ death comes as he was in the process of suing the Corrections Department for allegedly denying him access to prison programs. Those programs include taking high school classes and participating in restorative justice processes, which are often focused on rehabilitating both victims and offenders. 

Sears had been in prison since 2019 for crimes he committed in Vermont, the release said. He was one of 147 men that Vermont pays a private contractor to imprison at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi. 

The Missisppi prison is run by one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the country, CoreCivic, which Vermont contracts with to help mitigate overcrowding in Vermont’s in-state prisons. The facility holds more than 2,500 inmates — which is about six times the size of Vermont’s largest prison — and is more than a 1,300-mile drive from Burlington. 

Sears filed a civil lawsuit against the Corrections Department in September 2025, alleging that he had improperly been denied programming while in prison, according to court records. Court records show that Sears disputed being subject to an internal department policy that allows the department to hold incarcerated people past their minimum sentences if the department deems them to be a danger to themselves or others. 

In Sears’ initial court filing, which he wrote himself, Sears alleged the department violated state law and its own directives by determining he was subject to their risk containment policy. Sears wrote in the filing that his status as “risk contained” denied him access to programming in prison that could have lowered his chance of recidivism. 

Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the department, declined to comment on the legal case. 

According to a Department of Corrections’ database, Sears had a minimum release date of April 27, 2021, and a maximum release date of Feb. 21, 2055. A minimum release date is the earliest a person is eligible for parole, and their maximum release date is the end of their sentence, according to the Vermont Parole Board. 

Since Sears filed the lawsuit in court, the Vermont Prisoners’ Rights Office had represented his case. Court calendars show he was scheduled to appear in Orleans County Superior civil court in June. His court case appears to have been dismissed Thursday. 

Sears is at least the fifth person to die in the custody of the Vermont Department of Corrections this year, according to the department’s press statements. 

Nine people died in the custody of the department in 2025, Sommer previously told VTDigger. The department’s investigative unit will review Sears’ death, per department protocol, according to the release.