With the family of one of the victims looking on, lawmakers at a joint Judiciary Committee hearing in Anchorage Tuesday went through photos depicting some of the final moments of four inmates who died in Alaska Department of Corrections custody in recent years.
Most of the details surrounding the inmates' deaths had already been disclosed in a report released in mid-November, showing widespread dysfunction and systemic failures in some of the state's jails. Those findings and lingering questions, which sparked a push for policy changes at DOC, were the subject of Tuesday's hearing.
Sen. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, said the interest in the deaths is well-intentioned, but when the report surfaced, the need for change "ratcheted up to a crisis.
"We realized we had to do something about this, and not as a partisan issue," McGuire said, adding it wasn't simply about the well-being of inmates, but also the safety of DOC staff.
Gov. Bill Walker ordered the review in August after a series of prisoner deaths at state facilities. He assigned Dean Williams, former superintendent of an Anchorage juvenile justice center, to write the report, along with retired FBI agent Joe Hanlon. The two visited all 13 Alaska prisons and jails, conducted over 200 interviews with management, staff and prisoners, and reviewed case files on prisoner deaths.
With the consent of the prisoners' families, the governor's office on Tuesday also released videos related to two of the deaths. One showed the death of Davon Mosley, who died alone in a cell at the Anchorage jail in April 2014. It was video that McGuire had previously considered using a legislative subpoena to get released.
A culture in denial
The investigators and legislators spent much of Tuesday going over the death of Mosley, who died due to untreated ulcers on his small intestine. The 20-year-old moved to Alaska from California with his girlfriend Vernesia Gordon.
Gordon was in attendance at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office; so was Mosley's third child, Justice, who was born after his death. She held the girl in her arms as she thanked the committee members and others for their work.
"This is all I wanted, for the truth to be told," she said.
Before showing the pictures, Williams said he understood Mosley's death had been a concern, and he understood why. "These are hard slides to go through," he said.
The pictures show a timeline of Mosley's two weeks in solitary confinement, referred to as segregation by the DOC. They show the young man standing, sitting and lying around a small cell that gets visibly dirtier as the days pass. He is seen wrapped in a blanket and wandering the cell in various states of undress. The video also shows him dying while sitting up in the cell. His body isn't discovered by corrections officials until almost two hours later.
Early in his confinement, correctional officers blasted pepper spray into Mosley's cell, the pictures show. Mosley was allegedly sprayed upon returning to his cell; he was outside for some time because he tore his clothes and mattress.
Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux asked Williams if there was any justification for spraying an inmate once he is back in his cell.
"I see no justification," Williams said of Mosley's case.
Legislators continually asked questions about Mosley's treatment and correctional officers' behavior. They asked if officers were following the right policies.
"There seems to be a belief that they were doing what they were supposed to do. That this is how you run facilities," Williams said. "There are informal ways, cultures, of how institutions do things. We spent a lot of time talking about culture and environment. (Mosley's case) is the most extreme example" of institutional culture overtaking prisoner safety, he said.
The catalyst to change that culture starts with the release of the videos, he said.
"I think we've been in denial," Williams said.
Intoxication and mental health issues
He and Hanlon more quickly covered the deaths of three others. The death of Gilbert Joseph caused concern for several reasons; the video of his death was also released Tuesday.
Pictures show a barely conscious Joseph sleeping off a .5 blood-alcohol level in a small room beginning just before midnight on the night of Aug. 26. Joseph was the only person in the cell when he was brought in; the video shows two others joined him in the room by the time he died. The inmates slept under blue blankets on black mats spread across the floor, the pictures show.
One of the cellmates got mad over Joseph's loud snoring, according to the investigation. The cellmate repeatedly punched Joseph -- in the video, he appears unresponsive to the attacks -- and covered his mouth. In one photo, correctional officers can be seen telling the cellmate to stop. The unidentified man eventually rolled Joseph over. The man also put his hand over Joseph's mouth once more.
Sen. Peter Micciche asked if the cellmate seen repeatedly attacking Joseph had been charged. Williams said the case has been forwarded to state prosecutors.
When a person is placed in protective custody to sleep off drunkenness, police are following state law. Williams said the law dictates such supervision is warranted when the person has no one to care for them. Everyone agreed Joseph couldn't care for himself, but the legislators wondered if tasking jails with watching over intoxicated people was taking up too many resources, a sentiment Hanlon agreed with.
"We're dumping a lot of problems at DOC's doorstep," Hanlon told legislators. "There really needs to be solutions outside" the department, he said.
Interim corrections Commissioner Walt Monegan said the state must first address rebuilding trust in the system before taking on larger issues.
DOC health care administrator Laura Brooks, who sat beside Monegan at Tuesday's hearing, clarified that noncriminal holds, those jailed but not charged with a crime, involve intoxicated people and the mentally ill.
Mosley's death can partly be attributed to his mental state, Williams said. The video shows Mosley "devolving in front of us," he said. Sen. John Coghill commented that the mental effects of imprisonment are becoming more apparent.
The percentage of mentally ill inmates is very high, Monegan responded. He suggested establishing consolidated areas within existing DOC facilities for those inmates. That would not remove people from institutions closer to their homes, he said.
"It depends on how much free space I can generate at facilities around the state," Monegan said, meaning fewer prisoners would create room for separate, individualized housing. Fewer inmates and cost-cutting are the goals of potential reforms currently being weighed by the Alaska Criminal Justice Commission, he said.
That commission is expected to release its recommendations for reforming the state's prisons Thursday.