Killer wins, loses $6M verdict
Lawyers for a convicted murderer who last year landed a $6 million jury verdict for a Colorado prison beating he allegedly took — then lost that record award before the case was re-tried in November — say they expect better luck on appeal.
The case of Jayson Oslund, 37, has been an upand-down affair, mostly because the federal judge handling the matter, U.S. Magistrate Judge Kathleen Tafoya, first negated the jury verdict that gave the inmate a record sum in damages, then found for the defense following a second three-day jury trial in which the eight-person panel never got a chance to deliberate.
The first jury in March awarded Oslund $5 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. Tafoya said that outcome “shocks the conscience of this court,” and ordered a new trial, which took place Nov. 26-28. But rather than let a new jury deliberate the case after both sides presented nearly identical evidence as was heard in the first trial, Tafoya took the unusual step of granting a defense motion for an immediate dismissal.
“We respectfully disagree with the court’s order and recently filed our notice of appeal to the 10th Circuit,” attorney Zachary Warren told The Denver Post in an email. “We are hopeful that the appeals court will reinstate the initial $6 million verdict and honor the decision of those eight courageous jurors.”
Warren would not offer any theories about Tafoya’s action. Warren earlier told the Post that he welcomed the second jury trial, expecting a similar outcome.
The judge could not be reached for comment.
Oslund had sued former prison guard Mitchell Mullen over the alleged beating. Another inmate testified the guard had slammed Oslund into a wall and straddled him while demanding he stop resisting. Oslund, however, was suffering a seizure associated with his epilepsy. An earlier seizure that day left him with stitches and in need of a wheelchair.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office defended Mullen and has not offered any comment about the various outcomes.
Legal experts have said Tafoya’s actions after the first trial were unusual, especially because she had made her determination without reviewing the initial trial’s transcript, which is typically normal for a judge to do.
“In general, it’s unusual, but permissible, and not unheard of, for a judge to issue a directed verdict,” University of Colorado law professor Scott Moss told The Post in an email, referring to the outcome of the second trial. “But a directed verdict is easier to appeal than a jury verdict, so a judge has to be pretty darn convinced in order to enter a directed verdict that increases the odds of appellate reversal, compared to a jury verdict.”
Previously, Tafoya had said she thought the jury simply got it wrong: “The jury awarded … damages on a record which was bereft of any evidence of wrongdoing except that based solely on the testimony of an agitated convicted felon …” who shared a prison cell with Oslund, Tofoya wrote after negating the first trial’s verdict.
That inmate, Charles Garlick, has been serving a 40-year prison term for second-degree murder since 2011. He declared he was retaliated against after Oslund’s altercation with a prison guard because he would not keep silent about what he saw.
Oslund is serving a life term for felony murder stemming from a September 2009 incident in which an 18-year-old Pueblo man was beaten and later died of his injuries. Oslund and his brother, Kelly, were captured in Nebraska a month after the incident. Kelly Oslund was sentenced to a 28year prison term. He’s since been paroled.