Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson's decision not to prosecute two Charleston County jail deputies who used Tasers, pepper spray and brute force to drag Jamal Sutherland from his cell on Jan. 5 might seem to mark a final milestone in the case of his horrific death, but it must not.
If we as a community are going to learn and grow from this tragedy — and take the necessary steps to ensure something like it never happens again — there is much more work to do, and not just by those in the mental health and criminal justice arenas.
First, the U.S. attorney's office in South Carolina should scrutinize all of the details to determine whether federal charges are warranted. We suspect they might be, as Ms. Wilson's investigation produced, among other things, a 52-page report from a correctional use-of-force expert that lays out failures in policies, training and supervision at the detention center that contributed to Mr. Sutherland’s death.
She has asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI to look for possible civil rights violations, and that work should take on an added level of urgency. Remember that Ms. Wilson was unable to convict North Charleston police officer Michael Slager in the 2015 fatal shooting of Walter Scott, but federal prosecutors could: Mr. Slager is serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty in federal court to violating Mr. Scott’s civil rights. So we all should keep in mind the justice system might not have not spoken its final word in this case.
Second, regardless of whether federal charges are brought, South Carolina lawmakers need to pass limits on the use of force by police and correctional officers, with criminal penalties for violations. "There is no question they were negligent," Ms. Wilson said Monday, but the only available charges were murder and manslaughter, and state law makes it difficult to get a conviction even for manslaughter without proving malice. But the law doesn't have to remain that way, and we agree with Ms. Wilson's conclusion that “It’s time for an excessive force law.”
Lawmakers must not write this off as merely a failure of the mental health system and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, though it certainly was that as well.
Third, Sheriff Kristin Graziano must follow through on reforming her department beyond the eight policy changes she already has made to the way detention officers interact with inmates with mental health problems. She made those changes in the wake of Mr. Sutherland's death, which coincided with her swearing-in as the county's first new sheriff in decades. The most welcome and obvious (and easiest) change is to allow inmates to refuse to attend their bond hearing. Had that policy been in place on Jan. 5, Mr. Sutherland likely still would be alive today.
Gary Raney, the correctional use-of-force expert Ms. Wilson hired, concluded that the two deputies were not reckless because they were doing what they were trained to do — to the extent they had training for such situations at all. "If criminal liability could be attached to an organization rather than an individual, the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office should be charged,” he concluded.
While Ms. Graziano fired the the two jail deputies involved, Ms. Wilson's investigation found that one of them had objected to extracting Mr. Sutherland from his cell, but a jail supervisor ordered it anyway. Where is the accountability there? We're troubled to learn that two deputies who can't be prosecuted are now looking for jobs, while those who ordered their deadly actions may not be.
Fourth, state and local law enforcement officials must continue improving the way they handle suspects with mental health problems. Police and sheriff departments already were starting to address this issue, but this death underscores the need for further scrutiny. Mr. Sutherland had no criminal history and committed at most a misdemeanor related to a fight at Palmetto Behavioral Health, where his parents took him for treatment of his bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. His parents did everything right to help their son get the help he needed, and still he died.
We cannot accept this, but reform here might not require sweeping new steps as much as making sure that little, inexpensive and yet important steps are taken to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. For instance, Mr. Sutherland was taken off his regular antipsychotic medication and given new drugs at Palmetto, but that information wasn’t shared with jail personnel. That might have been why Mr. Sutherland was in a more agitated state when officers arrived at his cell door.
And fifth, in the bigger picture, it falls to all of us to remember what happened here — and not to expect that the necessary work will all be done solely by experts, law enforcement leaders or lawmakers. We all must continue to hold them accountable for making progress, realizing that not everything that needs to change can be changed at once.
No one can bring back Mr. Sutherland, but we can give his life new meaning by taking steps to minimize the chances anyone else's life ever ends in a similar way — and to hold more people accountable if it does.