Three former prison guards accused of punching, kicking and severely injuring an inmate seven years ago at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center are awaiting a federal jury’s verdict after a 10-day trial that ended Friday.
The three Department of Public Safety corrections officers were the “alphas” or “alpha dogs” at the prison, big guys who puffed out their chests, used force against inmates and made sure the inmates “follow our words or else,” special litigation counsel Christopher Perras of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told jurors in his closing argument.
The warden had warned them not to use excessive force, but they were tired and frustrated when they encountered Chawn Kaili and made an example out of him as other inmates watched, Perras said.
The jury must decide whether Jason Tagaloa, 31, Jonathan Taum, 50, and Craig Pinkney, 38, are guilty of depriving the inmate of his constitutional right prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment when they allegedly conspired in 2015 and 2016 to cover up the beatings and obstruct justice by falsifying an official report.
Tagaloa is additionally charged with a second count of deprivation of rights for allegedly assaulting Kaili in a holding cell after the initial beatings.
In closing arguments, Taum’s defense attorney, Richard Hoke, tried to discredit the government’s main witness, Jordan Demattos, a fourth corrections officer who testified against the defendants and admitted his involvement in the beatings and conspiracy.
“He admitted he lied under oath to save his job,” Hoke said, noting that because of a plea agreement, Demattos testified in hopes of getting a reduced sentence.
Perras, in rebuttal, argued Demattos pleaded guilty to the same charges as the other three defendants and “does not get a free pass.” He said that “his testimony matches the evidence.”
The four corrections officers, indicted June 2020, were caught on surveillance video beating and kicking Kaili while he was lying facedown on the asphalt in HCCC’s recreation yard on June 15, 2015.
Demattos testified Taum, their supervisor, directed the blows during the assault and later coached the officers during a meeting at his home on what to say when questioned about the incident. Pinkney used his cellphone to take a video of the meeting that was found by federal agents after seizing his computer, Perras said.
According to Demattos, Taum had instructed them to say the strikes they were trained to use didn’t bring the inmate into compliance, so they used strikes they were not trained to use.
Perras said the video evidence showed that as other blows were being delivered, Tagaloa kicking Kaili in the head “was no accident,” as the defense suggested. “This was malicious.”
He said Tagaloa also punched the inmate nine times in six seconds using “hammer fist strikes to the head.”
Hoke countered that the lack of audio on the June 15, 2015, prison video makes it hard to characterize what was happening. “You can’t tell if a person is angry, cruel, malicious, sadistic,” he said. “You can’t hear voices yelling from the window, voices of inmates” who were watching.
Demattos testified Kaili did not want to be handcuffed and kept his hands under his body as the heavy guards were on top of him and assaulted him.
Perras said Demattos “knew the moment Tagaloa kicked Kaili in the head it was wrong. It’s not complicated,” he said. “This is an easy rule: Don’t punch or kick anyone in the head.”
He said the fact the guards left out all the unauthorized strikes from their report shows that “it’s a cover-up.”
Defense attorneys argued the guards were just trying to handcuff the inmate but that Kaili was on drugs, was paranoid and didn’t want to be around others because he was at risk of hurting himself or possibly others and has only a partial recollection of what happened. He also had asked to be placed alone in a cell.
Hoke pointed out that it took four minutes for Kaili to “give up his hands” to be cuffed, and once he did they stopped the strikes.
He also told jurors, “There was no conspiracy. These men were scared because they didn’t want to lose their jobs.”
Hoke blamed another guard who “told them to make up stuff and blame each other” and to turn against Taum, their boss. “There was no meeting of the minds, at least not with Taum,” he said.
Perras acknowledged that being a prison guard is a hard job but that so is caring for preschoolers, but it’s no excuse for beating a child. And it’s certainly no excuse for the guards, who never accepted accountability.
He told jurors it’s up to them to hold the three accountable “for the beating of a defenseless human being and for covering it up.”
