Mistrial declared in Md. prison brutality case

A judge declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked Tuesday in the case of a former state correctional officer accused of breaking the nose of a handcuffed inmate.

The outcome was a setback for prosecutors and the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services in the first trial stemming from the agency’s crackdown on alleged brutality at two western Maryland prisons last year.

Assistant Attorney General Jason Abbott said he didn’t know whether the state would retry Scott Boozel, 28, of McConnellsburg, Pa., on the charge of second-degree assault. Boozel could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison had he been convicted.

Boozel expressed satisfaction after the two-day trial in Washington County Circuit Court ended. “That’s as good as it could have been,” he said.

His attorney, D. Bruce Poole, said: “I’m glad we didn’t get a conviction, but I really think the facts show that he’s not guilty.”

Poole and Boozel also revealed that a state administrative law judge issued a ruling June 4 ordering Boozel reinstated in his job at the medium-security Roxbury Correctional Institution near Hagerstown. He is among 23 officers fired in April 2008 for alleged brutality at Roxbury and the maximum-security North Branch Correctional Institution near Cumberland.

The state has 30 days in which to appeal the administrative ruling.

Nine Roxbury officers and six from North Branch were criminally charged in February. Two of the former Roxbury officers have pleaded guilty, and the state has dropped charges against a third.

Boozel’s case focused on the treatment of Kenneth Davis, 42, a Baltimore man serving a 19-year sentence for robbery. Prosecutors allege Davis was beaten beyond recognition by officers on successive shifts March 8-9, 2008, after scuffling with a guard during a security check of his cell.

Davis testified on Monday that Boozel led the second wave of assaults by entering the holding cell of a medical dispensary building where the inmate had been taken and punching him in the nose.

“It’s untrue,” Boozel declared from the witness stand Tuesday.

He testified that although he had gone to the dispensary to meet his supervisor that day, he never entered the holding cell and saw no one assault Davis.

The muscular defendant also denied that he was known around the medium-security Roxbury Correctional Institution by the nickname “Brock,” a reference to Ultimate Fighting Championship star Brock Lesner. Davis had testified that although he didn’t know Boozel’s name in March 2008, he and other inmates often called him “Brock Lesnar.”

Boozel testified that another burly officer who hasn’t been charged, Sgt. James Stotler, was known as “Brock.” Boozel’s former supervisor, John W. Henson, also testified that Stotler was called “Brock.”

The jurors were split 11-1 in favor of a “not guilty” verdict, according to a note they sent to the judge after two hours of deliberation.

“Initially, we were 9-3 not guilty,” the note read. It said two members changed their votes “even though they believed Boozel is guilty, but there is no corroborating evidence (to Davis’ assertion that Boozel punched him).”

The defense included surveillance video of the dispensary’s exterior showing people coming and going from the building. Henson testified, by identifying tiny, fuzzy figures in the video, that Boozel had spent nearly five minutes in the building. Henson said he was also inside the building at the same time and saw no one assault Davis.

Henson also testified that Stotler entered the building about three minutes after Boozel and remained inside, along with other officers, after Boozel left.

Videotapes from surveillance cameras inside the building were blank, according to administrative appeal records of another fired officer.

Abbott referred in his closing statement to “the brotherhood of silence,” a phrase first uttered in the courtroom by former officer Timothy Mellott, a prosecution witness who has acknowledged kicking Davis.

“This is a trial about those bad apples that float to the top, that do something wrong and then try to cover it up behind the brotherhood of silence,” Abbott said.

The five remaining Roxbury defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The six North Branch officers have pleaded not guilty to charges that they assaulted six inmates there on March 6, 2008. Their trials are set to begin in July.