ROCKLAND, Maine — A Knox County jury deliberated for about an hour Friday before acquitting a former Maine State Prison captain of assaulting an inmate on Christmas Eve in 2012.
David J. Cutler, 55, had been charged with assault after he pulled the legs out from under prisoner Renardo Williams while the inmate’s hands were cuffed from behind.
In his closing argument, defense attorney Philip Cohen said it was easy for “people in the cheap seats” to question Cutler’s actions while he works in a place where the worst criminals in the state are housed.
Cohen said Cutler had the authority to use force when an inmate was not complying with a lawful order from a corrections officer. The prison captain took the action after Williams refused two commands to sit and then started backing Cutler up against the wall, according to the attorney.
There are rules that society must follow and rules that must be followed in prison for the safety of all who are there, Cohen argued. He said Williams left his free will behind when he was imprisoned.
Williams testified that he refused to sit because it was his free will to stand.
District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau, who prosecuted the case, agreed that there were rules to follow but he also argued in his closing statements that Cutler does not get to play God just because someone has been sentenced to prison.
Williams testified Thursday that he had done nothing to make Cutler handcuff him during an event in the recreation area of the prison at which coffee and doughnuts were provided to prisoners. The prisoner said he had complained a few days earlier to prison authorities about guards watching and following him and other black inmates.
Williams testified that after Cutler handcuffed him, he then was led by Cutler and another guard to the office of Sgt. John Howlett. When they got into the office, Cutler twice ordered Williams to sit, but Williams said he refused because it was his right to stand. He said Cutler then bent down, grabbed behind his knees and pulled his legs out from under him. Williams said he fell backward to the floor and suffered a cut to his wrist from the fall.
Howlett testified Wednesday he was in disbelief when Cutler did that to the inmate.
Cutler said, however, that Williams was agitated in the recreation area and asked Cutler why he was harassing him by watching over him so closely.
Cohen also questioned Williams at length on the stand about a civil lawsuit he filed in federal court, seeking $300,000 in damages from a variety of prison officials, including Cutler, and the state over the incident. Cohen pointed out that Williams claims in the lawsuit that the assault was racially motivated. Under cross examination, the prisoner acknowledged that Cutler had never called him a racial name. Williams also admitted he had called Cutler a “cracker,” which is a derogatory term for white people.
He testified that the way Cutler was following and observing him and other black inmates was racially motivated.
Williams, a Massachusetts resident, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for drug trafficking in Maine. He now is being held at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.