Jailer agrees to plead guilty in case of inmate who froze to death at jail

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A former corrections officer at an Alabama jail has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge in the death of a mentally ill man who died of hypothermia after being held naked in a concrete cell for two weeks.

Federal court records show that Joshua Conner Jones entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors regarding the treatment of two inmates at the Walker County jail. Jones agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to deprive an inmate of their rights related to the 2023 death of Tony Mitchell. He also pleaded guilty to a separate rights-deprivation count related to the assault of another inmate.

The plea agreement indicated there were five co-conspirators in the mistreatment that led to Mitchell’s death, an indication that the investigation is ongoing and more people could be charged in the death.

A defense lawyer for Jones, W Scott Brower, said he could not comment on the agreement. Court documents did not name the inmate who died, but Bower confirmed the charge was related to Mitchell’s 2023 death. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Mitchell, 33, died on Jan. 26, 2023, after being brought from the jail to a hospital emergency room with a body temperature of 72 degrees (22 degrees Celsius), according to a lawsuit filed by his mother.

The plea agreement said that Mitchell “was almost always naked, wet, cold, and covered in feces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket.” By the second week of incarceration, he was “largely listless and mostly unresponsive to questions from officers,” but that the conspirators did not take action to alleviate his suffering.

Prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement that Jones admitted that “collectively we did it. We killed him.”

Jon C. Goldfarb, an attorney representing the family in the civil litigation, said “the family is shocked to see in writing what they knew happened to Tony Mitchell.”

Mitchell, who had a history of drug addiction, was arrested Jan. 12 after a cousin asked authorities to do a welfare check on him because he was rambling about portals to heaven and hell in his home and appeared to be suffering a mental breakdown. The Walker County sheriff’s office posted a photo on its Facebook page, adding that Mitchell, who had his face painted black, “brandished a handgun, and fired at least one shot at deputies” before running into the woods.

Prosecutors wrote in the plea agreement that when Mitchell’s deteriorating condition would be mentioned, the co-conspirators would reply that ” ‘he gets what he gets since he shot at cops’ or words to that effect.”

Kim Chandler, The Associated Press