Tarrant County will hire outside lawyers for guards in jail death lawsuit

Read the latest in our coverage of the Tarrant County jail.

The Tarrant County commissioners voted Tuesday to approve the hire of outside legal representation for two jailers listed as co-defendants in a lawsuit against the county by the family of a man killed in the county jail in April.

The family of Anthony Johnson Jr. sued Tarrant County, jailers Rafael Moreno and Joel Garcia, and 10 unnamed detention officers in July. Johnson died after being pepper sprayed and having Moreno kneel on his back for around a minute and half during an altercation with guards.

The vote was 4-1, with Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons voting against.

Moreno will be represented by Fort Worth attorney Kenneth E. East at an hourly rate of $280. Arlington attorney Jim Jeffrey will represent Garcia for $250 an hour. Each hiring was approved for up to $30,000, with other charges pending further approval by the county commissioners.

East and Jeffrey declined to comment.

Texas law allows the county commissioners to hire outside attorneys in the case that the complaint of a civil suit forms the basis of filing a criminal charge against county officials or employees.

While she understood the law to require the county to employ attorneys for Moreno and Garcia in this lawsuit, Simmons told the Star-Telegram that she “voted [her] conscience” by opposing the other four on the court.

“My sensibilities won’t let me vote for this, despite the statute,” she said. “Most all of us have viewed that portion of the video in which Anthony Johnson Jr. took his last breath and died while in restraint and under the knee of our jail staff.”

Calling the footage “horrific,” she said that Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn has already said that what the jailers did was wrong when he fired them.

“So we’re going to pay law firms — two separate law firms — to tell us that the decision we made to fire those two detention officers was not right,” she said.

Members of the public and Johnson’s family spoke out against policies and executive failures that led to the county needing to hire attorneys for Moreno and Garcia.

“How many times have you voted for similar contracts like this in your tenure here?” asked Nan Terry, a jail reform advocate with the Tarrant County Justice Network. “I’m not against the contracts, but I’d like to ask each of you, what have you done to prevent another Anthony Johnson’s death?”

Speaking after a briefing on jail standard operating procedures that Waybourn declined to attend, Johnson’s sister Janell said that poor policy and a lack of will on the commissioners’ part to hold the Sheriff’s Office accountable were the reasons the office has refused to release the full video of the altercation.

The Sheriff’s Office has denied the Johnon family’s demands to release the full video.

“That 15 minute tape shows you exactly what this sheriff represents, the torture of my brother,” Johnson said. “Now, Tarrant County residents, you’re going to be paying for the attorneys of the people who murdered my brother.”

Daryl Washington, the Dallas attorney representing the Johnson family in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Waybourn said in a statement to the Star-Telegram that he did not attend Tuesday’s briefing because it would have taken too long.

“In order for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office to brief on all 250+ Standard Operating Procedures, it would take approximately four and a half hours with multiple experts testifying,” he said in an email.