Insurance will cover $1 million, leaving the financially strapped county to find the rest.
And where the remaining $2 million will come from to pay Michael Burnley Jr. is unknown. The county's reserve fund stands at $700,000.
Burnley had asked for $15 million in the lawsuit filed in October.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors attorney Crystal Martin said she could not discuss the settlement or how it will be paid out. "That information is being kept confidential," she said.
But The Clarion-Ledger learned the county intends to pay the rest in installments over time, with the first payment of $300,000 to be made by May 15.
Supervisors reached the settlement in a closed session on Monday and hesitated to say much or discuss how the county will pay. The vote was 4-1 to settle the suit.
Board of Supervisors' President Peggy Calhoun said the board made the best choice it could. "Sometimes we're caught in a predicament where we have really only one choice," she said.
Other supervisors voting for the settlement, Robert Graham of District 1, Doug Anderson of District 2 and Phil Fisher of District 4, expressed similar sentiments. District 5 Supervisor George Smith voted against the settlement. He could not be reached for comment.
Burnley, 23 at the time, was paralyzed from the chest down from the beating. Fellow inmate John Earl Kennedy apparently jimmied Burnley's cell-door lock and assaulted him in March 2007. Kennedy now is serving a 15-year sentence at the State Penitentiary in Parchman for the assault.
Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin at the time said the locks on cells at the detention center in Raymond were faulty. The jail has been plagued with problems related to poor construction and maintenance issues since it opened in 1994. The primary issue has been the malfunctioning locks and cell doors.
Burnley was discovered lying on his cell floor in a pool of blood.
Neither Burnley nor his family could be reached for comment. His attorney, Hal Dockins, did not return repeated phone calls .
"I think under the circumstances this was the best deal we were going to get and evidently the majority of the board thought so, too," Anderson said. "We don't know where we are going to get the money from."
Fisher said it's time for the county to put the case in the past.
"We thought we got the best settlement we could possibly get," he said.
Graham said the settlement was the "best option for the county to avoid continuing litigation which would add to the amount of attorney's fees that we would have to continue to pay."
McMillin would not comment on the particulars of the settlement. "I'm glad to see it over with," he said.
Burnley, who was in jail on a charge of shooting into an occupied dwelling, was released two days after the attack so the county would not have to foot his medical bills.
The incident spurred the county to retrofit the cell-door locks in the section where Burnley was housed. The county is expected to spend about $20,000 on the locks and the retrofitting.
"It is my understanding that it is complete or about to be completed," said Hinds County Undersheriff Bill Gowan.