A former New York prison guard on Monday was found guilty of murder in the beating death of a handcuffed prisoner, while two of his ex-colleagues were acquitted.
The jury’s conviction of David Kingsley came after Robert Brooks was fatally beaten by state prison guards at the Marcy correctional facility when he arrived on 9 December. The attack was recorded on body-worn camera footage, the Associated Press reported.
Jurors found Kingsley guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter. The two other correction officers who were tried alongside Kingsley and found not guilty were Mathew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer, according to reports.
Ten guards were charged in Brooks’s death. Six have pleaded guilty, and another officer is scheduled to go on trial in January, the New York Times reported.
Video showed that Kingsley put his hands around Brooks’s neck – and then lifted him up – during the deadly assault. After Brooks was killed, authorities released video to the public that showed officers choking and punching Brooks, who was shackled and cuffed in a prison infirmary, the Times said.
During the trial, prosecutor William Fitzpatrick said that the officers tried to deactivate their body-worn cameras but didn’t realize they continued to record video. “Fate recorded those videos,” Fitzpatrick reportedly said.
The trio’s respective defense attorneys tried attributing Brooks’s death to shoddy supervision and poor training. Luke Nebush, the attorney who represented Kingsley, claimed at trial that he was “following procedure”.
Kieffer’s lawyer told jurors that Brooks “was in prison for stabbing his girlfriend repeatedly while in a drug-induced frenzy” and insisted that he was not a calm prisoner.
In an interview with News10NBC following his acquittal, Kieffer said: “I want to show my remorse to the family. What happened to them is not something that a family should go through.”
He also expressed thanks for the jurors’ decision, saying: “I am just very appreciative of what the jury did and how they were able to deliberate and find me not guilty.”
Brooks’s family released a statement following the verdict saying that they would continue pushing for reform of New York state’s prison system – which has long been saddled by abuse claims. The state’s corrections system has 42 facilities, housing more than 30,000 prisoners, the Times notes.
The family said jurors “made the right decision in finding David Kingsley guilty of murder” – but that “it was hard to see Matthew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer be given a pass,” News10NBC reported.
“Mr Galliher and Mr Kieffer were doing exactly what their prison supervisors expected them to do. The guards indicted in this case were not a few bad apples; they were part of a rotten system, doing what state officials have allowed them to do,” the family also said in the statement.
The family said they would keep pressing New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, to sign prison reform legislation. This bill would mandate around-the-clock fixed cameras in common areas of prisons, among other reforms.
“During this trial, we heard the truth about what happens to people in New York prisons. We learned that violence and cover-ups are normalized within” the state prison system, Jared Ricks, Robert’s brother, reportedly said. “The details that were laid bare about what happens in New York prisons should outrage everyone.”
