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<h1 class="reader-title">Curious admission in Vaughn trial:
Inmate witnesses are discussing trial in prison</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Xerxes Wilson - <span
class="asset-metabar-time asset-metabar-item nobyline">Nov.
19, 2018</span></div>
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<p itemprop="description"> Here's the latest in the
ongoing trial of the inmates accused of
orchestrating a siege that ultimately took the life
of a prison guard. <span>Delaware News Journal</span></p>
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<p>A jury deciding whether three men should be convicted
of a murder tied to the uprising at James T. Vaughn
Correctional Center last year must figure out who to
believe: the inmates on trial or the handful of
prisoners who testified for prosecutors. </p>
<p>After some 60 hours of trial testimony, a New Castle
County jury is in its second day deliberating whether
the first three Vaughn inmates to stand trial are
responsible for the death of Correctional Officer Steven
Floyd, who bled to death during the 18-hour standoff. </p>
<p>"This case is dependent on people who came in and told
you what they saw," said Deputy Attorney General John
Downs in his final statements to the jury.</p>
<p>That body of testimony is laden with contradictions,
the potential for inmate witnesses to cobble together
narratives to fit prosecutors' arguments and questions
about what is motivating the inmates to testify. </p>
<p>"What happened to Sgt. Floyd is a tragedy and it
shouldn't have happened, but so was this investigation,"
said Ben Gifford, who is representing one of the men on
trial. </p>
<p>Gifford and the defendants characterized the
investigation as "sloppy."</p>
<p>There were no cameras in the building. Of the <a
data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a"
href="https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/10/24/vaughn-prison-uprising-investigation-questioned-inmates-attorneys/1743987002/"
target="_blank">blood-stained clothes and shanks
Delaware State Police decided to test</a>, there were
no forensic matches to any particular defendant
currently on trial. Prosecutors argued additional
testing would likely not have yielded useful
information. </p>
<p>So absent other evidence, the jury must decide which
inmates to believe, the ones on trial or the ones
testifying against them. </p>
<p>Jarreau Ayers and Dwayne Staats, defendants already
serving life sentences and representing themselves in
the trial, characterized the inmate witnesses as liars
seeking a benefit in exchange for their testimony.</p>
<p>They said prosecutors are willing to cut deals,
overlook deception and ignore incriminating evidence
against their own witnesses in order to secure murder
convictions in one of the state's most high-profile
trials. </p>
<p>"I am fighting everything," Ayers said. "Every lie and
every contradiction I am going to point out until there
are no more inmates on the stand."</p>
<p>Ayers' and Staats' cross examination of their former
jail mates was at times personal. They knew each other
and often referred to each other by nicknames, like Jay
Bird, Poncho, Burner and Smoke.</p>
<p>When their motives were questioned, the witnesses said
they were victims doing the right thing.</p>
<p>"I can't sit there and witness someone getting hit up
and brutalized and not talk," said inmate Michael
Rodriguez, known as Latino, addressing Staats from the
witness stand. "It is eating me up. It is called a
conscience.”</p>
<p>From the stand, Ayers called it a show, saying men in C
Building enjoyed their moment of "liberation." Staats
said the uprising "was festive for a second." </p>
<p>Both Ayers and Staats admitted roles in the takeover. <a
data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a"
href="https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/11/14/vaughn-defendant-admits-he-spurred-uprising-but-not-violence/1994062002/"
target="_blank">Staats said he planned</a> it to force
Gov. John Carney to hear inmates' protests about
Delaware's prison conditions. Ayers said he wasn't
involved other than helping inmates with medical
conditions <a data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a"
href="https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/11/13/vaughn-inmate-defendant-takes-stand-says-riot-born-good-intentions/1948479002/"
target="_blank">out of the building during the
standoff</a>.</p>
<p>Both said they had no personal hand in the violence. <a
data-track-label="inline|intext|n/a"
href="https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2018/11/15/vaughn-prison-riot-trial-goes-jury/1997636002/"
target="_blank">Some inmate witnesses told a different
story. </a>Witnesses also testified that Deric
Forney, the other defendant on trial who was referred to
as Twin, attacked a correctional officer in the initial
moments of the uprising. </p>
<p>"Twin was putting the cuffs on (Wilkinson)," Rodriguez
testified. "As I’m walking out I can hear Wilkinson
scream 'please don’t kill me. I have a little
daughter.'"</p>
<p>Inmate statements are the only evidence against Forney,
and regardless of Ayers' and Staats' admissions about
their roles, how the jury evaluates witnesses'
statements about their actions during the uprising will
decide whether they are guilty of murder, a lesser crime
or nothing.</p>
<h2>'If I was a gambling man'</h2>
<p>The uprising began when three correctional officers
were overpowered by numerous inmates using what
prosecutors described as "coordinated violence."</p>
<p>"People were smashing people," said inmate witness
Richard McCane.</p>
<p>But who attacked who, where and when during the assault
is told differently by the handful of inmates who
testified to seeing the melee. None that say they
witnessed the attack could recall seeing others that
testified that they were present. </p>
<p>The attackers were mostly wearing makeshift masks but
some inmates said they could identify them anyway.</p>
<p>Abdul-Hafid As-Salafi was the only witness that said he
saw Ayers attacking Floyd. He also was one of two who
said he saw Forney attack another correctional officer.</p>
<p>As-Salafi said he identified Ayers through "skin tone"
and "mannerisms."</p>
<p>"I’ve been incarcerated for a substantial amount of
time and I have been around him," he told the jury. </p>
<p>McCane said he saw Staats return to his tier with
bloodied clothes.</p>
<p>In prior statements, he told police he saw him using a
mirror to look down the tier. In testimony, he said he
saw him without a mirror. Later, he admitted to not
seeing his face.</p>
<p>“Is it possible you could have just profiled me?”
Staats asked him.</p>
<p>McCane said he made a mistake regarding the mirror and
reiterated it was him he saw. </p>
<p>"If I was a gambling man, I’d bet on it," McCane said.</p>
<p>Downs, the prosecutor, said such issues are to be
expected. </p>
<p>"Those things happen when you recall things not only 18
months later, but after something that was a disturbing,
frightening experience," Downs said. </p>
<p>Contradictions were particularly important for Ayers,
who was accused by some witnesses of ordering a group of
inmates lingering in the building’s yard back into the
building minutes after the initial attack. </p>
<p>If true, it means he played an integral role in the
riot from near its inception and increases the
likelihood the jury will find him guilty of murder as an
accomplice. </p>
<p>He called inmates to the stand refute those presented
by prosecutors. He attacked contradictions between
separate witnesses as well as inconsistencies between
testimony and the inmates’ prior statements to
detectives. </p>
<p>For example, inmate Eugene Wiggins, told the jury he
saw Ayers' face when he called the inmates in. Ayers
noted that in his prior statements to police he said he
only heard the person's voice calling the group in, and
that “my gut is telling me it was Jarreau, but I could
be wrong."</p>
<p>"The (prosecutor) knows that," Ayers told the jury. "If
I didn't tell y'all that, they wasn't going to tell
y'all that."</p>
<p>Inmates told the jury that their initial statements to
police were rushed because other prisoners were timing
how long they were pulled from their cells to speak to
police.</p>
<p>Ayers also noted that the state's "star witness," an
inmate that was indicted and promised his testimony in
return for a plea deal, said he didn't know why Ayers
was being charged. </p>
<p>That witness told the jury someone else called the
inmates in from the yard, but is also the only person to
testify that Ayers was involved in planning the
uprising.</p>
<p>Downs implored the jury to "use your common sense."</p>
<p>"This is what happens when people are involved in any
event, especially one that is disturbing and scary,"
Downs said. "Sometimes the little details lose their
way."</p>
<h2>'Hope springs eternal'</h2>
<p>Ayers told the jury the case was built "on men
desperate to go home," arguing the inmates testifying
against him will benefit from their cooperation with
prosecutors. </p>
<p>Gifford and the defendants representing
themselves pointed out that some inmates were eager to
help police in return for getting transferred out of
Delaware or getting a break on their sentences. </p>
<p>Gifford quoted one witness'
explicative-filled statement to police that "them N
words" did the riot and "if I can capitalize off of it
and go ... home, that is what ... I'm going to do."</p>
<p>In court, each inmate testified said they received "no
promises" from prosecutors. </p>
<p>"What deals?" Deputy Attorney General Brian Robertson
asked the jury. "We are now four weeks out, what were
the deals that people got for their testimony?"</p>
<p>For most inmates, Gifford quizzed them about their
sentence and the potential for the state to help them.
At least one said they were under the impression that
they could receive some benefit all the way up until two
weeks before trial. </p>
<p>"It doesn’t matter if they are actually getting or have
gotten benefits from the state," Gifford said. "Hope
springs eternal."</p>
<p>He said that benefit doesn't have to be a promise from
a prosecutor. He told the jury the Department of
Correction lords over the lives of the inmates: "who
they get to see, who they get to talk to, how long they
get to come out of their six-by-six cell."</p>
<p>"(DOC) lost a brother," Gifford told the jury. "Do you
think it possible that inmates who testify and the DOC
perceives to have helped the prosecution, that DOC
helped them out a little bit?" </p>
<p>Robertson said such benefits are not in evidence. </p>
<h2>'I read the paper'</h2>
<p>The defendants and Gifford accused the inmates of
colluding to craft testimonies that fit the prosecutors'
ends.</p>
<p>They said the witnesses could do that because they have
time to talk and prosecutors' theories were set out in
the pages of The News Journal. </p>
<p>Gifford asked the jury if they really believed that
anytime during the 18-hour standoff that those
responsible didn't talk about how they could get away
with the crime and who to pin it on. </p>
<p>Trial testimony established that some two dozens of the
state's witnesses are being housed together, in a single
tier at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution. </p>
<p>Inmate witnesses said they were free to spend time
talking to the other witnesses and that no detective or
prosecutor warned them against speaking to each other.
They denied speaking to each other about their
testimonies but said they are talking about the case. </p>
<p>"Who is not talking about this case?" Rodiguez said. </p>
<p>Rodriguez said inmates have easy access to The News
Journal and pass it around. Gifford asked him if he had
read the newspaper in the days prior to taking the
stand. </p>
<p>"Of course, who doesn’t?" Rodriguez said.</p>
<p>In addressing the jury, Ayers recalled testimony he
said contradicted an inmate's previous statements. </p>
<p>"That was in February. He comes back in
November: 'everybody y'all got in the paper, that is who
it was,'" Ayers said. </p>
<p>Once the jury returns its verdict in this trial, 14
more C Building inmates are set to be tried for murder
tied to the uprising in multiple trials over the coming
months. </p>
<p id="article-body-p-last"><em>Contact Xerxes Wilson
at (302) 324-2787 or <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:xwilson@delawareonline.com">xwilson@delawareonline.com</a>.
Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.</em></p>
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