A legal battle over the public’s right to view a video capturing the death of a Black man who died naked and bound by corrections officers at Garner Correctional Institution in 2018 continued in Connecticut Appellate Court Thursday.
A three-judge panel heard arguments from lawyers representing the state and the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut regarding the validity of a Superior Court order that denied the ACLU’s request for a copy of a 52-minute video showing the final moments of J’Allen Jones’ life in Department of Corrections custody.
Jones was 31 years old and suffering from schizophrenia when he died in Garner Correctional Institution on March 25, 2018, as a result of “sudden death during struggle and restraint with chest compression and pepper spray exposure in person with hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” according to Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. James Gill.
Chief State Medical Examiner Dr. James Gill ruled Jones’ manner of death a homicide, but in 2019, State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky said an investigation “determined that the circumstances of … Mr. Jones’ death are not criminal in nature.”
Over the last six years, Jones’ mother, Jessica Jones, and Jones’ former partner and the administrator of his estate, Lynnette Richardson, have been fighting for damages in a wrongful death lawsuit. On Oct. 4 the plaintiffs filed a motion asking the court to make the tape accessible to the public.
Days later the ACLU filed a petition with the Appellate Court arguing that the public should have access to the tape because the video evidence in the court’s possession “has never been sealed” and “could not be sealed.”
The Superior Court is currently considering motions for summary judgment and dismissal brought by lawyers from the Office of the Attorney General, that if granted, would end the civil case. The state’s lawyers have argued that the video, which was referenced repeatedly in their request for summary judgment, was never officially filed with the court.
During Thursday’s hearing, Assistant Attorney General Terrence O’Neill argued that the proper course of action would be to return the matter to the trial court for an “appropriate hearing on the question of seal.”
Outside the courthouse, Barrett said he hopes the Appellate Court will vacate Superior Court Judge Lisa K. Morgan’s Oct. 4 order denying the ACLU’s request for a copy of the video. Barrett said this would likely not grant the public immediate access to the footage. Instead, he said a ruling of this nature would likely give the state a certain number of days to file a motion to seal the video in Superior Court where the state and plaintiffs would argue the merits of concealing the footage from the public.
During the hearing, Barrett argued that the Superior Court order denying the ACLU’s request “rests on a mistake of law.”
“The presiding judge effectively looked to the protective order and created a sealing order out of it,” Barrett said.
Barrett argued that the protective order should have no “bearing on what the public can access once a document crosses the threshold of the Superior Courthouse and is attached to a dispositive motion.”
According to court documents, the protective order filed in 2019 requires both parties to submit a joint request to have the video filed under seal before introducing or submitting the exhibit into evidence — a condition that was never met, according to the ACLU and Jones’ family.
O’Neill said the state has “no idea” how the video ended up in the court’s possession.
“It is a head-scratcher to say the least,” O’Neill told the Appellate Court judges.
“The two discs that co-counsel and I brought to court with us that day are in our file and we have a clear recollection of them being handed back to us,” O’Neill said. “We don’t know where this third disc came from.”
O’Neill said he expects a transcript of Superior Court proceedings from Sept. 20 will show that the state tried to lodge the video with the court and that Judge Claudia Baio instructed the clerk to return the exhibit to the state’s possession. Lodging evidence allows parties to present exhibits to the judge for consideration without officially filing them into the court record.
Barrett argued that “lodging is not a long-term stop for a document and that it would not be proper to have a document parked with the court while the very motion that it relies on is under consideration by the judge.”
Barrett reasoned that lodging and sealing should occur concurrently or “separated by a couple of days at most.”
“You would think that a party that had lodged a document had in mind that the document was sensitive and didn’t want it revealed for whatever reason, and would therefore immediately move to have it sealed,” Barrett said. “I’m not aware of a sealing motion having been filed over the exhibit one video even to this day.”
In a statement to the press earlier this month, Barrett said “the public — especially lawmakers who are elected to represent the people of Connecticut — should have access to this video.”
“As the sole evidence of what happened to Mr. Jones at the hands of the Department of Correction, and as a court filing that has never been sealed, the public should have access to the video as guaranteed by state law and the First Amendment,” Barrett said. “It is imperative the people know what is being done in our names behind prison walls.”
Attorney Ron Murphy, a lawyer representing Jones’ family, described the video of Jones’ death, which has been held by a protective order since 2019, “as disturbing as” and “in some ways…worse” than George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Murphy claims “The defendants struck J’Allen repeatedly, violently threw him down twice, sprayed him twice directly in the face with pepper spray while his face was covered by a safety veil — all while J’Allen (Jones) was naked, handcuffed behind his back, shackled at his ankles, hogtied, and having a schizophrenic episode in the psych ward of a Connecticut prison.”
Murphy also highlighted that Jones “was Black and eight of the nine defendants are white,” and that Jones never “hit or threatened any of the defendants involved in his death.”
Lawyers representing Jones’ family in the seven-count case against DOC employees claim that after Jones became unconscious, “the Defendants waited 7 minutes and 16 seconds before starting lifesaving measures.”
In 2020, the Attorney General’s Office fought against a motion brought by the family’s lawyer to unseal the video. In their objection, the office argued that disclosing the tape to the public would “severely impair the safety and security of DOC correctional facilities” and “lead to significant media attention” and “extrajudicial statements that obviously would prejudice or otherwise influence prospective jurors,” which would “compromise the Defendants’ right to a fair trial.”
In a response filed with the court, lawyers representing Jones’ family argued that “The Defendants’ rationalizations for the protective order are a pretext to disguise the horrific treatment of mental health inmates.”
In the document, the plaintiffs said Jones “died as a result of this treatment” and that the video reveals “a glaring human rights violation that is all too common in the Connecticut Department of Corrections.”
“The horrific treatment of the vulnerable and large population of mental health inmates in Connecticut is a human rights issue. Anyone interested in prison reform and human rights have a right to view this video,” they said.
In a motion for summary judgment filed with the Court in March, the Attorney’s General Office said “Mr. Jones’s death was caused by a ‘very complex sequence of events,’ which the custody officers did not anticipate,” and that the DOC employees named in the case are “entitled to qualified immunity on all claims” brought by the plaintiffs.
In the filing, the Attorney’s General Office states that “the Defendants had no idea that Mr. Jones had any underlying heart disease, which was a contributing factor to his death,” and that “none of the Defendants actually appreciated or understood that Mr. Jones was in medical distress until he was likely already deceased.”
“The custody Defendants never sent medical away, ignored medical advice, or disregarded evidence informing them of a serious risk to Jones. Rather, throughout the incident they repeatedly sought out medical assistance and relied upon medical staff to determine if anything is wrong — which evinces concern and care for Mr. Jones — not indifference.”
The Attorney’s General office also said the defendant’s use of a safety veil, pepper spray and other “physical techniques to secure Mr. Jones,” are “common, authorized by policy, and trained to DOC officers as appropriate for use,” and the “Defendants could not possibly be actually aware that use of these tools …would pose a substantial risk of serious harm to a healthy young man.”
Jones was serving a 10-year sentence for first-degree robbery. At the time of his death, Jones had been incarcerated for roughly three and a half years.
