Mark Cooper retrial: Witnesses offer opposing views on Alexander Rios' 2019 jail death
Two doctors.
Two experts.
Two very different opinions.
Jurors in the Mark Cooper retrial heard from two doctors who each gave lengthy testimonies on Thursday's fourth day of the trial in Richland County Common Pleas Court.
Cooper is charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and a single count of reckless homicide.
Dr. Roger Mitchell and Dr. Lee Lehman were the only witnesses to take the stand. They disagree on how Alexander Rios died following an incident on Sept. 19, 2019.
Rios, 28, was an inmate at the Richland County Jail when he ran from a holding cell and was subdued by several corrections officers, including Cooper.
In a jail video, several corrections officers can be seen holding Rios down, stepping and kneeling on his back while an officer punches his head into the concrete floor and they struggle to handcuff him.
Cooper can be seen on the video with both feet on Rios' back. The state contends that claimed Rios' life.
Mitchell agrees.
He and Lehman also each testified in the first trial this past fall. Common Pleas Judge Brent Robinson declared a mistrial when jurors could not agree on a verdict.
Mark Cooper retrial: Attorneys give opening statements in jail death case
Witness for the prosecution testifies for nearly five hours
Mitchell spent nearly five hours on the witness stand. He is a medical examiner and forensic pathologist as well as a professor at Howard University.
Mitchell also served as the deputy mayor for public safety and justice in Washington, D.C. In addition, he has written a book, "Death in Custody."
He estimates he has performed 2,000 autopsies.
Mitchell prepared his own report in the Rios case.
"Prior to the foot, he's verbal. With the weight of the individual who placed his feet on his back — you can see Alexander Rios take his last breaths," Mitchell said. "He's unresponsive after that. You can see he's ashen or blue."
Mitchell dismissed the official cause of death, listed as excited delirium, which is characterized by agitation, aggression, acute distress and sudden death, often in the pre-hospital care setting and often involving drug use.
"No major medical organizations subscribe to excited delirium as a cause of death," Mitchell said. "Excited delirium doesn't exist anywhere in pathology other than a crop of forensic psychologists.
"It's a symptom of circumstance, not a cause of death. We're becoming smarter about how these deaths occur."
As an analogy, Mitchell said alcohol may cause a fatal crash, but the crash would cause any deaths.
Drew Wood, representing the state for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, then played the jail video of the incident.
At the 2 minute 6-second mark, Mitchell noted Cooper's foot is seen on Rios' back. The doctor said Rios was under control.
At the 2:56 mark, both of Cooper's feet are on the inmate's back.
"There's a change in his breathing, a wheezing when that foot is on the neck," Mitchell said. "After this, he's not as conversant. He's not as belligerent."
D.C. expert reviews jail video of incident
Nearly 4 minutes into the video, Mitchell said Rios is not moving. Cooper's knee can be seen on his back.
"He looks blue," Mitchell said. "He's been asphyxiated; he's no longer breathing."
Mitchell maintains Rios died of asphyxia due to compression of his neck and back.
Lehman and the defense say Rios died after ingesting methamphetamines. The addict had relapsed in the weeks before his death. Mitchell said he considered the opinion, but only briefly.
"There is a demonstrative cause of death," Mitchell said of asphyxia. "The reason Alexander Rios died is not hard."
Defense attorney James Mayer III cross-examined Mitchell for more than three hours.
"If he had died in his cell without anybody touching him, I would be looking at a drug overdose," Mitchell said.
Mayer revisited the notion of excited delirium. Mitchell said doctors now try to determine the underlying cause for any delirious state.
Mayer pointed out that some of the corrections officers said Rios demonstrated unusual strength and continued to struggle even after being stunned with a taser.
Mayer also noted that Cooper was not the only corrections officer involved in the fight. Mayer called it a "sea of bodies."
Mayer also asked Mitchell about one of the corrections officers twice yelling for Rios to let go of the handcuff after Cooper had gotten to his feet.
"The actions that happened led to his death," Mitchell said, adding he couldn't say Rios would have lived if Cooper had not been involved.
As he did in the first trial, Mayer went after Mitchell's compensation for his work on the case. Mitchell has a business called Ram Consulting. He is paid $500 per hour and $3,500 for testimony.
On direct examination, Mitchell said he is paid for his opinion, which doesn't always match what the client wants.
"Pay in and of itself does not create bias because we all get paid for our work," he said.
On cross, Mitchell said he chose his field after a couple of cases involving police brutality. He agreed when Mayer asked him if he is an "advocate physician."
Montgomery County official said Rios died of excited delirium
In Thursday's morning session, Lehman, who was deputy coroner in Montgomery County when the Rios autopsy was performed, said he thought Rios was under the influence of methamphetamine when he struggled with corrections officers. He supervised the autopsy and said he has handled more than 10,000 himself.
A torn piece of plastic was found in Rios' stomach. It was presumptively positive for amphetamines, but the hospital did not do a confirmatory test.
In the 2019 autopsy, Lehman ruled the cause of death was excited delirium, a diagnosis that has since fallen out of favor with many in the medical community.
Last year, the National Association of Medical Examiners said it would no longer recognize the term excited delirium.
Mayer, on cross-examination, asked Lehman if the term had been "debunked."
"Excited delirium is a syndrome, a collection of signs and symptoms," Lehman replied. "Some people refuse to accept it, but it's always been there. They don't want us to use it as a cause of death."
Lehman said he believes drugs caused Rios' delirious state, and his reaction to the drugs triggered cardiac arrest.
Responding to a question from Mayer, Lehman said this was the first time in his career prosecutors have wanted to discredit him.
Lehman said he considered asphyxia as a cause of death but ruled it out.
"Do you change your opinion today?" Mayer asked.
"No," Lehman said.
He listed the manner of death as accident. The other four manners of death are natural, undetermined, homicide and suicide.
On redirect, Wood pointed out that Lehman did not say in the coroner's report that he suspected meth. Lehman said he would amend his testimony.
"I actually believe it was meth, but I can't say to a reasonable degree of certainty," Lehman said.
Rios' body showed no injuries or bruising, but Lehman said that can happen in a case of asphxia.
mcaudill@gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Mark Cooper retrial witnesses differ on Richland County OH jail death
