Seven of nine Saline County jailers were cleared Saturday of claims that they used excessive force and deliberately ignored the medical needs of a 30-year-old pretrial detainee who died in the jail in 2011.
A federal jury that heard testimony in the case last week couldn't decide, however, on whether two of the jailers, Calvin Reed and Sgt. Mike Richards, used excessive force in restraining the inmate, Casey Babovec.
Babovec, who lived in the East End community, was admitted to the jail about 1 p.m. April 13, 2011, after a traffic stop revealed an outstanding warrant for his arrest. It was later determined that during the traffic stop, he swallowed two gram-size packets of methamphetamine that later ruptured in his stomach.
A state pathologist determined after an autopsy that Babovec died about 5 p.m. that day as a result of methamphetamine intoxication complicated by a struggle with jailers.
Babovec's mother, Robin Babovec Cruz, who lives in East Texas, filed a civil-rights lawsuit in 2013 against jailers who wrestled with Babovec after pulling him out of a holding cell where he was fighting with another inmate. A jail camera captured the struggle on the floor of a wide hallway outside a handful of holding cells.
Jurors deliberated for nearly an hour Thursday and all day Friday before announcing they were deadlocked on two questions out of 18 initial interrogatories on the verdict form, without saying which questions led to the stalemate. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker urged them to try to resolve the dispute, and they returned at 9 a.m. Saturday to resume deliberations.
By about noon, however, jurors reported to Baker that they were still at an impasse. The verdict form showed they unanimously agreed that, based on the greater weight of evidence, all nine jailers didn't deliberately ignore Babovec's medical needs.
However, the jurors could agree only that seven of the nine jailers didn't use excessive force. Their verdicts for each of the defendants had to be unanimous.
In clearing all the jailers on the medical issue, the jury of six men and six women also cleared the county and former Sheriff Bruce Pennington of liability, negating the need to answer remaining questions about whether jailers were properly trained or adequate policies were in place.
James Swindoll, the Little Rock attorney who represented Cruz, said Saturday that despite the deadlock, he thinks Babovec's mother is "relieved" because she was able to hear all the details of her son's death.
He said that overall, he thinks the trial was a "positive experience" for her, because she got to meet and hear the testimony of the jailers involved.
"It's a human thing," he said. "They're not strangers who took her son from her anymore."
Swindoll said there are "mixed emotions" about whether to pursue a retrial of the excessive-force claims against Reed and Rogers in their individual capacities, but, "We're really considering it."
Reed was among the jailers who piled on top of Babovec in an effort to handcuff him, while Richards was a supervisor who walked up on the scene after all the jailers but Reed had gotten up.
Swindoll said throughout the trial that the jailers, especially Reed, compressed Babovec's respiratory system as he struggled to breathe while suffering from methamphetamine intoxication.
After the verdict, Swindoll said he thinks jurors deadlocked on Richards because he didn't order Reed to get off Babovec after he was handcuffed. Reed testified that he stayed on top of Babovec -- straddling him without pressing on him -- because he feared Babovec would rise up again and continue fighting.
The jailers acknowledged they hadn't been trained to recognize signs of methamphetamine intoxication, which an expert witness from Missouri testified is exacerbated by prone restraint, which can suffocate a person who is overdosing.
At some point during the struggle, which lasted about five minutes, Babovec lost control of his bladder and bowels and went limp.
Jailers heard him making noises after that, which they said indicated to them that he was still breathing, but that the expert said was a sign that Babovec was dying.
After the struggle, Babovec was dragged into another cell, where another jailer noticed that he wasn't breathing and took his pulse. Jailers then scurried to call for paramedics and get a defibrillator while Reed performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Benton attorney George Ellis represented the jailers, Pennington and the county on behalf of Central Arkansas Risk Management, an insurance pool.
"I feel like our folks were exonerated on everything but those two counts, and I think they [Reed and Richards] will eventually be exonerated," Ellis said after the verdict.
He noted that since Babovec's death, the county has contracted with a medical-services company that provides full-time medical facilities and medical personnel in the jail, as is the case with many of the state's larger jails.
Ellis said Richards recently left his job at the jail and Reed moved on to become a Saline County deputy.
The other jailers named as defendants and cleared of wrongdoing, some of whom remain employed at the Saline County jail, are Tonya Parker, Sam Griffin, Dion McGuire, Ryan McKinley, David Fenton, James Payne and Nancy Shellnut.
Metro on 02/01/2015