HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — A year and a half after beginning an investigation into the incidents leading up to Irvo Otieno's in-custody death at a state psychiatric hospital, Henrico County's chief prosecutor said "we'll never know" whether any crimes occurred at the jail where Otieno was held before he died.
For the first time, Henrico Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Taylor discussed the high-profile case publicly and shared her concerns about how it was handled.
“Mr. Otieno lost his life for no good reason," Taylor told CBS 6 reporter Tyler Layne. “We have a situation where we have a young person who's in crisis and the system failed him.”
Otieno died at Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County on March 6, 2023, as the video showed him being restrained on the floor of an admissions room by Henrico sheriff's deputies and hospital employees for up to 12 minutes.
Taylor's office became quickly engaged in the case due to the chain of events leading up to Otieno's death which happened in Henrico County:
- Henrico Police officers were called to Otieno's home for a mental health call on March 3, 2023.
- Otieno was then transported to Henrico Doctors' Hospital's crisis receiving center under an emergency custody order for mental health treatment.
- While at the hospital, a Henrico Police officer charged Otieno with assaulting a law enforcement officer after video appeared to show Otieno punch the officer.
- Otieno was removed from the hospital and transported to Henrico Jail West under a temporary detention order where his condition deteriorated for three days.
"When making the decision to place him in a jail facility, was that the right call? It's hard to say, but again, the system was-- we put somebody who was in crisis in a jail setting," Taylor said.
Video obtained through court records showed that, while at the jail on March 6, Henrico deputies tackled Otieno in his cell and struck him multiple times. A deputy later testified in court that the punches were distraction strikes because Otieno was attempting to gouge an officer's eyes out and was being noncompliant with their orders.
Another angle of the jail showed deputies carrying what appeared to be Otieno's limp body into a vehicle for transport to Central State. Deputies later testified in court that Otieno was purposely not moving his body as a form of resistance.
Acknowledging a level of concern about what the videos showed, Taylor announced in March 2023 that her office would complete a "thorough investigation" of what happened at the jail and then release the findings.
But Taylor said that investigation didn't go the way she wanted.
“We were unable to do the job that we should have been able to do because of the dynamics of the case and the posture that it was in," Taylor said.
And the reasons why, she said, had to do with the decisions of the initial Dinwiddie prosecutor in the case Ann Cabel Baskervill.
Taylor said when Baskervill used a "highly irregular" method, called a criminal information document, to charge ten people with second-degree murder in Otieno's death less than ten days after it happened without first going through a grand jury, it limited her ability to interview witnesses and access evidence which was quickly sealed in Dinwiddie Circuit Court.
“It was unprofessional. I think that it was rushing to judgment," Taylor said about Baskervill's actions.
In a statement, Baskervill said she would not change anything that she did, that it was her duty to advocate for justice and public safety, and that it was her position that the evidence supported second-degree murder charges.
But Taylor is skeptical of how Baskervill determined that the seven Henrico deputies and three hospital staff she initially accused of second-degree murder acted with malicious intent when the primary evidence was video that contained no audio.
Baskervill resigned in June 2023 to go to school abroad, leaving the case in the hands of different prosecutors. Taylor believed Baskervill set them up for failure.
“Somebody has lost their life, and you are not going to be here to see this through, and to have the expectations of a family just crushed, for what?” Taylor said. "The idea of going to trial and perhaps not knowing what people are going to say, because there was never an opportunity to really investigate the case thoroughly the way that it should have been investigated, I can only tell you that was probably very difficult."
Ultimately, Taylor said she was not pursuing any criminal charges connected to the incidents in Henrico County, which she said she conveyed to the lawyer for Otieno's family.
“Can you safely say that it is your position that no crime was committed in the Henrico Jail during those days?” reporter Tyler Layne asked.
“I can't say that there's no crime that was committed," Taylor said. “Our position was we'll never know because we were never given the opportunity, and because of the statute of limitations, we will not be able to ever find out what really happened.”
Under Virginia law, the statute of limitations prevents the prosecution of misdemeanor charges more than a year after the offense occurred.
“Had that statute of limitations not expired, do you think that you might have ended up finding any type of criminal liability?” Layne asked.
“I don't think so, Tyler. Tyler, I will tell you I don't think that we would even be able to have done anything while those Dinwiddie charges were pending," Taylor said.
While not an assessment of criminal nature, the disAbility Law Center conducted a review of documentation and video footage of Otieno's time at the jail and found the deputies' use of force to be "particularly egregious."
However, Taylor warned the video evidence lacked critical context including clear indications of Otieno's behavior and why deputies responded the way they did. While she agreed many of the points raised in the disAbility Law Center's investigation were concerning, she believed they were civil rights issues as opposed to criminal issues.
A civil case was resolved last year through an $8.5 million settlement payout from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Henrico County, and the Henrico Sheriff to Otieno's family and lawyers.
While the criminal cases in Dinwiddie County began with ten defendants, only one ever stood trial, and he was found innocent by a jury in October.
Following that outcome, all remaining charges were withdrawn by current Dinwiddie Commonwealth's Attorney Amanda Mann who said she saw no ethical path forward after a thorough review of the evidence and law.
Taylor believed that was an inevitable result considering the "reckless" handling of the case early on, which was out of Mann's control.
“The criminal system is supposed to give some solace to a family who's lost a loved one. It's supposed to be set up to hold people accountable for their actions. And we have neither in this situation," Taylor said.
However, Baskervill said Mann's decision provoked "a lot of grief and frustration."
She added that when Mann previously downgraded charges from second-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter, it showed a "fundamental misunderstanding of prosecution under Virginia law" and "lack of empathy" for Otieno's family.
Mark Krudys, the attorney for the Otieno family said his mother is "very dissatisfied" with the outcome and what she perceived to be a lackluster effort by Mann's office to effectively prosecute the case.
"In the only trial in this matter, the CA’s Office did not appear to have spoken with witnesses that it called in its case-in-chief, allowed Irvo to be villainized even though he was a patient in a mental health crisis, struggled to effectively utilize the video evidence available in the case, and failed to bring appropriate resources to bear in the matter," Krudys said in a statement. "The official cause of Irvo’s death is “POSITIONAL AND MECHANICAL ASPHYXIA WITH RESTRAINTS” – meaning that Irvo was not allowed to breathe – yet no one will be held accountable for his death?"
The determination by the state medical examiner's office that Otieno died of a lack of oxygen while being restrained was heavily disputed by expert witnesses who testified on behalf of the defense in the one trial that went to court. The experts argued that Otieno instead died from a sudden cardiac death.
CBS 6 checked back in the medical examiner's office following the trial, and a spokesperson said Otieno's cause and manner of death had not been re-reviewed or changed.
Krudys maintained his position that the U.S. Department of Justice should take the case over.
Taylor believes it's unlikely federal prosecutors will get involved.
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