Announcer: Sponsored by Harding Mazzotti.
Interviewer: In the wake of the recent beating death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility, the State Attorney General’s Office is seeking to be removed as defense counsel in four cases involving inmate abuse allegations at that same correctional facility. And this comes just a day after the Attorney General’s office filed to recuse itself from the criminal investigation of Brooks’s death investigation. So, managing partner Paul Harding is here from Harding Mazzotti. First of all, Paul, what are your thoughts on this whole case?
Paul: So it is indefensible. You can’t even watch that video without trying to figure out what and who is involved in the training of that prison and how that prison is being run. I mean, it is just grotesque.
Interviewer: Yeah, yeah. And the Attorney General’s office, the Attorney General recused herself and her whole office from this investigation. So why did that happen?
Paul: So the investigation recusal makes some sense. Conflict of interest, maybe an appearance of impropriety, because she represents some of the folks in the room currently and past in other cases unrelated to this. So the appearance, the conflict, she says, I’m not going to investigate. It makes sense because if someone’s investigating you who might know a little more than they should as a lawyer, we can’t do that.
Interviewer: Right. But then he gets a little convoluted because then she recused herself from those four investigations with those four officers that were separate from this.
Paul: That is less clear as to why they did that because if we presuppose that she’s not going to prosecute, she’s not going to investigate, well, then she’s really in an okay position, or the office is in an okay position, to continue representing these folks in unrelated cases that have not been proven and wherever they go, they go. So it just feels as if they’re just kind of removing themselves completely. I don’t know if the optics aren’t good, or if it’s just they feel that we have an appearance of impropriety. This is going to be a case with so much spotlight on it that we don’t even want to have any hint that there’s anything other than the truth and equity coming out of this. So yeah, she and, again, the Attorney General’s office is out of this whole thing.
Interviewer: Right. But the governor wants charges to be filed here. Where does the case go from here now?
Paul: So right now, we’ve got the state investigation. The federal investigation is underway. There’s going to be criminal charges against many of those correctional employees who are in that room. There’s no question about that. And then there’s civil cases. That is going to be something that will be filed in the next several months. So this is going to go on, and it’s going to go on with a real microscope, because this is a regional case, how we look at it. But if you look around the country, they’re watching this. Everybody’s watching this. We now have our version of, you pick, George Floyd or some of these other cases that captivated national attention.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, we’ll have to continue to follow for the updates and see what happens here.
Paul: Absolutely.
Interviewer: All right, Paul. Thank you.
Paul: Thank you.
