ALBANY — A federal jury has awarded $9.25 million to the mother of a prisoner who died after a 2016 confrontation with correction officers at Clinton Correctional Facility.
The verdict was delivered hours after the jury began deliberating Tracy Yvonne Cooper’s assertion that baton-wielding guards at the Dannemora prison used excessive force when they killed her 25-year-old son, Terry L. Cooper.
TRAGIC AND DEEPLY SAD
Jurors started deliberating at about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday following closing arguments before U.S. District Judge Anne Nardacci.
Attorney General Letitia James’ office, which defended the officers, declined to discuss the verdict on Thursday.
“Any loss of life of an individual in a DOCCS correctional facility is tragic and a deeply sad and impactful event,” the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said in a statement. “The department is reviewing the verdict and considering the legal options.”
Cooper, of Syracuse, the youngest and only male in a family of five siblings, was the father of a young girl. He died inside the maximum-security prison on the evening of May 19, 2016. His mother sued three officers for at least $3.75 million in addition to unspecified punitive damages.
The suit alleged the officers used excessive force and failed to intervene to aid Cooper, violating his civil rights under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The law allows prison officers to apply force in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, but not if it is inflicted maliciously and sadistically with the intent to cause harm.
BEATEN BY BATON
Cooper had been headed to the prison gym around 7:30 p.m. when he activated a metal detector. Two officers, Patrick M. Clancy and Kolby M. Duffina, found an address book on Cooper that contained sexually explicit photos. As they walked Cooper back to his cell in the prison’s B Block to write him up, they were joined by another correction officer, Steven W. Wood.
In his closing statement, plaintiff’s attorney Joshua S. Moskowitz told jurors the officers used at least one baton to beat the 5-foot-4-inch, 117-pound Cooper, inflicting injuries to his head and back. The attorney displayed autopsy photos as he spoke, highlighting linear “tramline” bruises on Cooper’s back that he said were consistent with a person who had been struck with a baton.
And Moskowitz displayed an image showing a bruise above Cooper’s eye.
“Tracy Cooper and her family are asking you to believe your own eyes,” Moskowitz told jurors in a courtroom filled with more than 20 observers, including other members of the dead man’s family.
‘I NEED MY ASTHMA PUMP’
He asked jurors to award the family of Cooper at least $3.75 million in addition to punitive damages.
“Other families shouldn’t have to suffer like the Coopers,” said Moskowitz, whose legal team also included David B. Rankin, Regina Powers and Adam Strychaluk.
Attorneys for the officers claimed that Cooper had punched Clancy and Wood. They argued the officers tried to get a combative Cooper, who was kicking them, into mechanical restraints but he kept resisting, which led Clancy to punch Cooper twice in the upper torso. They say the officers were able to restrain Cooper, who was escorted toward the infirmary but collapsed on the way, saying “I can’t breathe” and “I need my asthma pump.”
He died in the infirmary.
Michael Sikirica, the forensic pathologist who conducted Cooper’s autopsy, concluded he died from cardiorespiratory arrest consistent with acute exacerbation of chronic asthma. He classified the death as natural.
Moskowitz noted that another forensic pathologist, Zhongxue Hua, determined that Cooper died of acute exacerbation of chronic asthma immediately following the scuffle with officers. He said Cooper’s death should have been classified as a homicide. Two other doctors — Richard Steinmann and Dr. Steven Salzman — testified on behalf of the correction officers.
Assistant Attorney General Jorge A. Rodriguez told jurors the case, while tragic, did not involve wrongdoing by any of the officers. He said Clancy suffered a concussion during the scuffle with Cooper.
“In short, there is no evidence of excessive force,” said Rodriguez, whose legal team included Assistant Attorneys General Amanda Kuryluk and Nicholas Dorando.
The burden of proof in a civil case requires plaintiffs to establish a preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not.
At the time of his death, Cooper was serving a 12-year sentence for first-degree robbery and second-degree assault in Onondaga County.