U.S.

California Prison Guards Acquitted

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 10, 2000 / 12:21 PM EDT / CBS

After a nine week trial, a federal jury acquitted eight Corcoran State prison guards of setting up gladiator-style fights among inmates in 1994.

The guards were accused of conspiring to deny the prisoners' right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The jury deliberated for six hours before reaching the verdict.

The prison guards were elated with the verdict, although some expressed bitterness that charges were ever filed. Relatives in the courtroom gallery sobbed with relief. The trial lasted nine weeks.

"Part of me is going to be very bitter for a long time," said Sgt. Truman Jennings, one of the guards charged with lesser offenses. "I think that anybody that sat through this trial every day like I did knew I shouldn't have been here. The government attorneys had an agenda and they were never interested in the truth."

One guard's lawyer yelled, "All right!" and slammed his fist on a table when the verdict was read.

Defense lawyers argued that guards did not set up any fights. They said fights erupted when inmates of different ethnic and geographic backgrounds were forced to exercise together in the prison's highest-security unit, as part of a since-rescinded "integrated yard" policy.

Four guards could have faced possible life sentences, the others up to 10 years behind bars.

In an attempt to wound a fighting prisoner, Officer Christopher Bethea fired a round from his 9mm rifle that struck inmate Preston Tate in the head and killed him.

A key prosecution witness, inmate Anthony James, testified that Bethea bragged moments before the fight broke out that it was "duck hunting season."

Tate's death led to an $825,000 settlement for his family and also brought about key policy changes at California prisons.

The Department of Corrections also revised its policy on the use of deadly force, which had resulted in seven inmate deaths at Corcoran and dozens of injuries during prison yard fights from 1989 to 1994.

Since the allegations surfaced against the eight guards, not one Corcoran prisoner has been shot.

Bethea, Lt. Douglas Martin, Sgt. John Vaughn, and officer Jerry Arvizu faced the most serious charges - setting up the fight that led to Tate's death. No homicide charges were brought.

Jennings and officers Michael Gipson, Timothy Dickerson, and Raul Tavarez faced lesser charges in connection with another prison yard fight.

None of the guards still works at Corcoran. Six transferred to other jobs in the prison system and two have retired. The whistleblowers, former Lt. Steve Riggs and guard Richard Caruso, both went on disability leave for stress-related problems and also no longer work for the prison.

Carl Faller, the U.S. Attorney in Fresno, said he would accept the verdict, and continue to prosecute any violations in the prison system.

In November, four Corcoran guards were acquitted of setting up the rape of an inmate by a notoriously violent prisoner nown as the "Booty Bandit." Prosecutors argued that the rape was in retaliation for an attack on a female guard.

Prosecutors in both cases faced the daunting task of trying prison guards in California's Central Valley. Jurors in the state's rural heartland tend to be sympathetic to guards because prisons provide much of the region's non-farm employment, as many as 10,000 jobs.

The state's powerful prison guard union ran TV and radio commercials before and during both trials, describing inmates as violent predators and Corcoran as the "toughest beat in the state."