Oklahoma Prison News

 

$6.5 million verdict awarded in inmate's slaying
Family members of a Lawton private prison inmate who was strangled to death in his cell have been awarded a $6.5 million verdict in a wrongful-death lawsuit. Lawton Correctional Facility inmate Ronald Sites was strangled in 2005 by cellmate Robert Cooper.
BY RANDY ELLIS rellis@opubco.com
Published: June 24, 2011

LAWTON — Family members of a Lawton private prison inmate who was strangled to death in his cell have been awarded a $6.5 million verdict in a wrongful-death lawsuit.

I think it's fair to say that the jurors were appalled at the evidence we brought them of inconsistencies among the staff, some applying the rules and procedures of the facility, some not, and seemingly no disciplinary action taken to those that aren't applying rules and procedures.”
Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson

Lawton Correctional Facility inmate Ronald Sites was strangled in 2005 by cellmate Robert Cooper, said Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson, who represented Sites' son and two daughters in the wrongful death lawsuit. Cooper was later convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to life in prison.

Richardson said Cooper should never have been put in the cell because he had a prison history that made the killing predictable.

Nine months before being placed in a cell with Sites, Cooper had been placed in isolation by the prison staff because “he told a counselor he sat on his bunk with a sheet in his hand, fighting off the urge to kill his cellmate,” Richardson said.

Cooper's prison file showed he had stabbed another inmate and had twice been caught with shanks in his possession, the attorney said.

Richardson said his investigation revealed the staff knew that Cooper, already a convicted murderer, wanted to go back to McAlester and had concluded the only way he was going to get to do that was to kill someone.

Protective custody
Meanwhile, Richardson said the cellmate Cooper subsequently strangled was a former police officer who had suffered a traumatic brain injury in an oil-field accident.

Richardson said the brain injury had left Sites unable to control his constant talking, which proved to be a “real annoyance” to staff members and other inmates.

Sites was in protective custody and was supposed to have been kept in a cell alone, but prison officials ignored the restriction and placed a series of cellmates in with him, Richardson said. None stayed very long because of Sites' behavior, the attorney said.

“The whole thing was covered up,” Richardson said.

Richardson said the warden and the vice president of The Geo Group, the private prison's operator, maintained throughout the trial that they had not failed at anything.

“The state of Oklahoma did a window-dressing-type investigation,” Richardson said.

Richardson said the judge who presided over Cooper's murder trial recommended a grand jury investigation, but “the attorney general closed it down.”

$6M in actual damages
Richardson's clients were awarded $6 million in actual damages and $500,000 in punitive damages by the Comanche County jury.

Richardson said he found out later that two jurors wanted to award his clients $25 million.

“It absolutely was a verdict that was given by very conscientious jurors who listened to seven days of testimony of conduct in a prison system that should not be acceptable,” Richardson said. “I think it's fair to say that the jurors were appalled at the evidence we brought them of inconsistencies among the staff, some applying the rules and procedures of the facility, some not, and seemingly no disciplinary action taken to those that aren't applying rules and procedures.”

The Geo Group's attorney could not be reached for comment.

Read more: http://newsok.com/6.5-million-verdict-awarded-in-inmates-slaying/article/3579891#ixzz1QeHuJIzt

 

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