BLAME JAILS: LAWYER
Capt. charged with doing nothing as inmate hanged himself
A lawyer for a Manhattan jail captain charged with failing to act while a mentally ill detainee hanged himself asked the jury to pin the blame on the city’s “dysfunctional” Department of Correction instead.
Representing Capt. Rebecca Hillman at her Manhattan Supreme Court trial, attorney Todd Spodek in his summation Friday asked the jury to acquit his client, who he said was not “a homicidal maniac.”
Hillman is charged with criminally negligent homicide for the November 2020 suicide of Ryan Wilson, with prosecutors alleging she forbid her subordinates from intervening before he hanged himself at the now-shuttered Manhattan Detention Complex, known as “The Tombs.”
Wilson is further charged with lying on official paperwork about how soon she took action.
“Should she have been more diligent? Absolutely. Should every correction officer have been more diligent? Absolutely. Should the Department of Correction have been more diligent? Absolutely,” Spodek said in his closing argument.
“At best, the Department of Correction is dysfunctional — at best,” Spodek added.
“You think she just went to work that day and had no regard for human life?” Spodek later said. “That’s just not how life works.”
Jurors have seen footage from inside the lower Manhattan jail facility showing Hillman looking into Wilson’s cell as he was hanging and declining to let a frantic guard cut him down.
The jail captain then did a tour of the floor, chatting to inmates before circling back to the cell after about 15 minutes, when she ordered medical attention for Wilson.
When medics arrived, he was dead. Hillman’s lawyer argued that she didn’t believe Wilson was being serious when he tied a noose around his neck affixed to a light fixture in his cell. Spodek said Hillman thought “that it was a ruse, that he was joking” because she had experience with inmates pretending to attempt suicide.
In the prosecution’s closing argument,
Assistant District Attorney Dafna Yoran displayed disturbing images of Wilson hanging with a white bedsheet around his neck and arms by his side.
Yoran argued department rules required jail staff to cut Wilson down immediately. She said Hillman had a duty to exercise extreme caution.
“Is the risk not obvious — that if left in that position for 15 minutes this individual may just not survive? We’re talking about risk not certainty,” Yoran said. “If you came upon this scene walking in the park today, would you not believe there’s a substantial risk this person may not survive?
“Would it be reasonable to just keep looking at him?” the prosecutor continued.
Wilson, 29, had long suffered from bipolar disorder, according to medical records. During the trial, prosecutors said he had not caused corrections staff trouble and spent hours perfecting his hobby of creating paper red roses out of tissue paper and Kool Aid.
Wilson had been at the Tombs for a month after his arrest on third-degree robbery charges. His bail was set at $1, but he was held on a parole hold for getting rearrested while he had a pending misdemeanor case. He was released from prison the previous summer after serving seven years for attempted robbery.
The city DOC suspended Hillman after her April 2021 arrest and has placed her on modified duty pending the case’s resolution. She’s stationed on Rikers Island, where she’s prohibited from dealing with inmates.
If convicted, Hillman faces up to four years in prison.