Two former deputy jailers also were found not guilty of assaulting the inmate, Chad Ray Boggess of Cross Lanes, W.Va.
The verdicts by the six-man, six-woman jury were reached after only an hour and 15 minutes of deliberation and concluded a 12-day trial in Boyd Circuit Court.
Family members of the defendants, Marty Johnson, Matt Daniels and Douglas Raybourn, wept when Circuit Judge C. David Hagerman read the verdicts, as did Boggess' widow, Wanda. None of the defendants showed any emotion.
Johnson, 30, of Flatwoods, a Boyd County Emergency Medical Services paramedic, was accused of murdering Boggess by "wantonly asphyxiating" him with a riot baton, known as a PR-24, in the King's Daughters Medical Center emergency room, where Boggess was taken following an incident at the jail the night of March 16, 2002. Boggess went into cardiac arrest in the ER and died at KDMC 26 days later.
Johnson's attorney, Ned Pillersdorf of Prestonsburg, argued that Boggess' death was the result of a condition known as agitated delirium, possibly caused by withdrawal from Xanax, a prescription anti-depressant Boggess was known to have abused.
"He (Johnson) never should have been indicted," Pillersdorf said. "He never should've had to go through this ordeal."
Johnson declined to comment, citing a civil suit filed by Wanda Boggess that is still pending in U.S. District Court.
One juror, who asked to remain anonymous, said the panel was not able to draw a conclusion as to how Boggess died. However, there was strong agreement that Boggess did not die of asphyxia, as a state deputy medical examiner, Dr. Gregory Davis, concluded, the juror said.
"We thought the procedure he (Davis) used in developing the cause of death was not adequate," the juror said.
Davis, who performed the autopsy on Boggess, found that he died of "complications from positional and mechanical asphyxia" and ruled his death a homicide.
Davis testified that he relied mainly on information from two law-enforcement officers who investigated the case, Catlettsburg Assistant Police Chief Dean Akers and FBI Agent Scott Vito, in reaching his conclusion. He also acknowledged that he never spoke to either of the two physicians who were in the ER when Boggess was brought in.
One of those doctors, Jason Collins, testified as a prosecution witness and said he did not believe Boggess died of asphyxia.
Davis' findings also were refuted by several doctors who reviewed Boggess' medical records and were called as expert witnesses by Pillersdorf.
The juror said another key point in the case was an instruction to the jury that stated Daniels and Raybourn could not be found convicted of assault it the panel found they were privileged to use force on Boggess because they were acting within the scope of their positions as deputy jailers, and if they were attempting to prevent the inmate from escaping.
The jury concluded that neither Daniels nor Raybourn had used excessive force on Boggess, the juror said.
"I'd like to thank my family and friends for their prayers and support," said Daniels, 30, of Ashland. "It's been very much appreciated."
Raybourn, 33, also of Ashland, declined to comment. His attorney, Richard Hughes of Ashland, said he thought the instruction on privilege was a major factor in his client's and Daniels' acquittals.
"It allowed (the jurors) to cut to the chase," he said.
The juror said the panel gave little weight to the testimony of another former deputy jailer, Gabriela Zamudio, who was in the detention center's control room the night of the incident and said she saw Raybourn strike Boggess in the head three times with a PR-24 after the inmate had been subdued.
Her testimony was contradicted by several law-enforcement officers, who said they never saw Raybourn hit Boggess.
Boggess' father, Thaddeus "Buzzy" Boggess, expressed disbelief over the verdicts.
"It's been a conspiracy from day one and it's still a conspiracy," he said.
Commonwealth's Attorney J. Stewart Schneider said he hoped the airing of the facts in the case would allow the community to begin to heal.
"From the moment this was declared a homicide, this had to happen," he said. "The only group that could make the call on this was an impartial jury after a public trial. I think that was even more important than the verdicts."
Schneider also said he was "not particularly surprised" by the verdicts.
During his closing remarks, Schneider said Boggess' beating and subsequent death were the result of a "chest-thumping, testosterone-riddled, I'm-going-to-show-you who's boss" mentality that permeated the jail.
That same mentality caused Johnson to "step out of the role of a paramedic and into the role of some ER policeman," he said.
But Pillersdorf maintained that his client was wrongfully charged "because someone jumped to the erroneous conclusion" that Boggess died of asphyxia.
"A single phone call to Dr. Collins and my client would not be going through this unbelievable nightmare," he said. "We're talking about a good man who did nothing wrong."
From the witness stand, Johnson admitted he used the PR-24 to restrain Boggess, who was thrashing, kicking and attempting to bite people in the ER. However, he said he placed the baton at the base of the inmate's jaw, not on his neck, and held it there for 30 to 60 seconds.
According to testimony, the fracas at the jail began after Boggess became unruly in the maximum security area of the facility, and Daniels and another deputy jailer, Chuck Gussler, went to check on him.
Boggess, who had been arrested by Ashland police on a West Virginia warrant charging him with burglary, asked the two deputies if he could leave the jail for a few minutes to get a DVD player and some DVDs out of his car for him and his cellmates to watch. He also referred to Daniels as "Jimmy."
Other inmates told the deputies that Boggess had been acting bizarrely, talking to people who weren't there and stealing their commissary items. They advised them to remove Boggess from the maximum-security area.
The deputies placed Boggess in a restraint chair in a detox cell off the jail's booking area. They released him from the chair about 30 minutes later, with Daniels warning Boggess that he would pepper-spray him if he began acting up again.
Daniels and Raybourn, who had arrived for work by that time, went back to the detox cell after Boggess began screaming and banging on the doors and walls of the cell. When they opened the cell door, Boggess burst out, knocking both deputies backwards.
The two deputies grappled with Boggess, who had stripped off the paper "suicide suit" he had been placed in, in the booking area. The inmate broke away from them and ran into the pre-trial room and barricaded the door with his body.
The deputies managed to subdue Boggess and drag him back to the detox cell with the help of several Class D inmates, or "trusties." Daniels then called 911 for an ambulance and for backup from other law enforcement agencies. They also called their supervisor, Sgt. Bob Price.
Price, 37, pleaded guilty last May to a federal charge of assaulting Boggess and is serving a five-year sentence. Numerous witnesses testified during the trial of Johnson, Daniels and Raybourn that Price savagely beat the inmate with a PR-24 and his fists before removing him from the cell.
"I think both the prosecution and the defense did a good job of convicting Bob Price," said another juror, who was stricken from the panel as an alternate and did not participate in the deliberations. "The fact that he's only serving five years for what he did is the biggest injustice in this case."
