Ex-jailer's past behavior not on trial, judge rules

Allegations that a former Stone County jail administrator has a history of assaulting prisoners when angry can't be aired at his March trial on accusations that he violated two prisoners' civil rights in 2011, a federal judge ruled Monday.

In a written order, Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller granted defense attorney Jason Files' Sept. 21 motion to suppress testimony that prosecutors sought to introduce for the purpose of showing Randel Branscum's intent, willfulness, motive and absence of mistake during a 2011 encounter with two inmates in the jail.

Branscum, 55, is charged with conspiring to violate the civil rights of two inmates by locking them in a cell with two other inmates who beat them up.

Prosecutors say Branscum rewarded inmates Matthew McConniel, 43, and James Beckham, 35, by giving them smokeless tobacco products in return for beating up the other two inmates, Raymond Jennings and Blake Jeffries, whom he deemed responsible for flooding the jail. McConniel and Beckham are scheduled to be tried alongside Branscum, also on civil-rights conspiracy charges.

One of the allegations that prosecutors sought to air at the trial was that on May 21, 2010, while transporting Jeffries from the Searcy County jail to the Stone County jail, Branscum stopped his patrol car and repeatedly jabbed Jeffries in the ribs with a flashlight while another deputy looked on. The other incident occurred in 2008 or 2009, prosecutors say, when Branscum choked a man, Destry Gill, in the back seat of a police car. They say Branscum's anger at Gill, who was arrested for a crime committed during a party, was a response to Gill's complaints that his handcuffs were too tight.

Files of Little Rock argued that the allegations about Branscum's previous actions weren't similar enough to the allegations that he arranged for the inmates' assault on Sept. 19, 2011, to show his intent in the 2011 incident.

Miller agreed, saying, "Both alleged prior acts involved the defendant's immediate reaction to an individual in the back of a police vehicle. These circumstances are too dissimilar from the alleged crime at hand that the defendant conspired to punish inmates for being disruptive in [jail], and the probative value of this evidence would be substantially outweighed by potential prejudice."

Branscum, McConniel and Beckham were originally scheduled to be tried by a jury in early November. However, on Oct. 20, Miller postponed the trial until March 7, 2016, after prosecutors said they needed more time to prepare. The case is being prosecuted by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Metro on 12/01/2015

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