Mark Cooper retrial: Attorneys give opening statements in jail death case
With jury selection taking a day and a half, the Mark Cooper retrial has gotten off to a slow start.
Attorneys delivered their opening statements Wednesday morning in Richland County Common Pleas Court before calling the first witnesses.
Cooper, 57, is the former Richland County corrections officer accused of causing the death of a jail inmate in 2019. Alexander Rios, 28, died following a struggle with several officers after he ran past them and out of a holding cell.
Cooper is charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, one a first-degree felony, the other a third-degree felony; and reckless homicide, a third-degree felony.
A jury deliberated for 12 hours over the course of three days in November before the foreperson sent a note to the judge saying they could not come to a consensus on any of the three counts.
Brent Robinson, Richland County common pleas judge, declared a mistrial, leading to this retrial, which started Monday.
In his opening statement, attorney Drew Wood, from the Ohio Attorney General's Office, described Cooper's involvement in the struggle with Rios.
Wood said Cooper did not get involved until about a minute into the confrontation. He was inadvertently struck in the hand with a Taser.
Showing still images instead of the jail video, Wood pointed to Cooper putting a foot on Rios' upper shoulders and back.
"He leans forward," Wood said of Cooper. "As he does, you'll hear Alexander Rios crying out as more body weight is put on him."
Wood said for 7 seconds, "The defendant does not have a single foot on the floor." Both were on Rios.
Around 2 minutes into the struggle, Cooper crouched and placed his knee on Rios' back.
Wood moved ahead to the 3-minute mark.
Acting prosecutor: When jailers tried to get Rios to stand up, he was 'already gone'
"When they lift Alexander Rios, they tell him to get up, stand up, but he can't because Alexander Rios is already gone," Wood said. "He's dead weight. His skin had turned gray."
Wood encouraged the jurors to watch the video in detail "to understand what really went on."
"The defendant crushed the breath and the life out of Alexander Rios," Wood said.
In going over the three counts, Wood said the state is not required to prove the defendant tried to kill Rios to prove he committed a crime. He added Richland County corrections officers are trained not to put their feet on an inmate's back.
Wood acknowledged Rios struggled with drug addiction for many years but said it shouldn't matter in this case. Rios was arrested on a Richland County warrant while staying with his mother in Huron County the night before the confrontation.
"Nothing says it's OK to kill drug addicts," Wood said. "The warrant allows officers to arrest you, not kill you."
He said the two sides would have two factual disputes, the cause of death and whether Cooper was justified in his use of force.
The defense argues the cause of death was excited delirium. Excited (or agitated) delirium is characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting and often involving drug use.
Wood said the term has "fallen out of favor" with many medical organizations and noted the case is nearly five years old.
"We aren't in the past anymore," Wood said. "It's 2024. We have better information."
Attorney says use of force was too much in this case
As far as use of force, Wood agreed that Rios should not have run past corrections officers and out of his holding cell. The attorney maintains, however, that Rios was not in a position to escape.
"The evidence will show what Alexander Rios was trying to do is breathe," Wood said.
He added Cooper later placed his knee on Rios' back for 60 seconds.
"This is not a split-second decision that went wrong," Wood said.
In his opening statement, defense attorney Sean Boone recounted how Rios wound up at the county jail. Boone speculated he was under the influence of drugs during the struggle. Rios had relapsed on methamphetamines in the weeks prior to his arrest.
Boone said Huron County authorities found Rios hiding in a crawlspace in the basement of his mother's home, and Richland County deputies picked Rios up at the county line.
He was booked in at the jail around 3 a.m. Boone said jurors would see the body scanner process.
"He reaches into his jail suit and pulls something out of his pocket," the attorney said.
Defense contends Rios was under the influence of drugs during confrontation
Since a torn piece of plastic was found in Rios' stomach during the autopsy, Boone suggested that Rios had a bag of meth.
In the afternoon before his struggle with corrections officers, Rios told jail personnel he was planning to hurt himself. He was placed in a suicide smock.
Boone said Rios began acting "bizarrely" around 11 p.m., adding he appeared to be under the influence of drugs.
Regarding use of force, Boone said, "The need was for his own safety."
Boone said Rios appeared to have unusual strength, another trait associated with excited delirium.
"Even with five officers, Alexander Rios pushes himself up off the ground, onto his knees," Boone said, adding the inmate needed to be handcuffed and placed in leg shackles.
Boone said Cooper entered the fray when Rios continued to resist.
"This was a coordinated effort," Boone said, noting a supervisor was repositioning the officers. When Rios was unresponsive, they tried life-saving techniques.
"No one is saying Alexander Rios deserved to die," Boone said. "This was a tragic situation, but it (use of force) was necessary."
Boone told jurors several doctors would testify during the trial and would not agree on how Rios died.
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Case background
Mark Cooper's charges are in connection with the death of Alexander Rios, 28, after the inmate was subdued by several corrections officers on Sept. 19, 2019. Rios had rushed out of a holding cell.
After Rios ran past several corrections officers, they chased him down and tried to restrain him.
In a jail video, several of the corrections officers can be seen holding Rios down, stepping and kneeling on his back while an officer punches his head into the concrete floor as they struggle to handcuff him.
Cooper, described during the first trial as weighing 250 pounds, stood on Rios' back with both feet, which prosecutors claimed caused Rios' death.
Following the confrontation, Rios was taken to OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital, but he never regained consciousness. His family took him off life support eight days later.
This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Former Richland County jailer back on trial in case of inmate's death
