The attorney for Marvin Booker’s family asked members of a federal jury to award them more than $15 million in damages for the jail death of the 56-year-old Denver street preacher.
Jurors began deliberating Friday afternoon. They adjourned Friday evening and will resume deliberations Tuesday, after the Columbus Day holiday.
During his closing arguments Friday morning, Darold Killmer recommended that jurors give the family more than $5 million in compensatory damages and award $10 million in punitive damages for Booker’s death while in jail four years ago.
“If it costs enough money, they’ll be motivated to do something different,” he said, adding that $1 million or $2 million would be insufficient. “It has to be something that is crystal clear.”
Thomas Rice, attorney for the city of Denver, told jurors during his closing arguments that, “None of us would be here right now if Mr. Booker had followed the rules.” He said Booker’s death occurred because of severe underlying medical ailments.
Booker family attorneys have presented witnesses who have testified that a confrontational deputy latched onto the inmate unnecessarily while he was retrieving his shoes, triggering a series of excessive-force actions that cost him his life on July 9, 2010.
But the defense has presented evidence that Booker himself initiated the conflict by not obeying reasonable orders critical for maintaining order in a potentially dangerous area of the Denver jail.
Several doctors from around the country testified that Booker’s poor health linked to his habitual cocaine use made him a “ticking time bomb,” who could have just as easily died sitting on a park bench.
Rice said if deputies can’t use inmate control techniques they are trained to use, then “they can’t do their job.”
The attorney methodically went through the actions of each of four deputies and a sergeant, pointing out that in every case the actions of the deputies did not cause severe injury, including a carotid neck hold.
“It’s not a chokehold and there is not the slightest evidence that the neck hold caused any damage,” he said. “We’re talking about zero evidence of any kind of injury to the neck.”
Killmer pointed out that Dr. John Carver, the medical examiner who performed an autopsy, wrote that Booker’s cause of death was a heart attack during restraint.
“Talk about ignoring the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Mr. Booker died. Mr. Booker died,” Killmer said, referring to Rice’s point that individual actions by deputies caused little or no injury to Booker.
During Friday evening’s deliberations, one juror sent a note asking to be excused. No action was taken, and the judge told the jury to resume deliberations Tuesday.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@
