Despite some concerns, Tarrant County is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend itself and employees in a lawsuit over a jail death. NBC 5’s Tahera Rahman reports commissioners approved hiring lawyers for the county and other employees on top of attorneys already hired for previous defendants in the case.
More than six months after Anthony Johnson Jr. died in the Tarrant County Jail, Tarrant County Commissioners approved outside attorneys to represent themselves and eight other defendants in a lawsuit filed by Johnson's family.
Commissioners voted on the items during a special meeting on Tuesday after they were pulled from a previous agenda.
The lawsuit names 16 total defendants: Tarrant County, Joe Garcia, Rafael Moreno, Jaquavious Simmons, Elijah Marez, Johnathan Nymoen, Tyrone Caldwell, Royce Moody, Kimberly Nobles, Phylicia Hollie, Angel Sanchez, Jevon Stubbs, Steven Gil, Kyle Longo, David Pitcock, and Robert Russ.
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During Tuesday's meeting, county commissioners approved outside attorneys for eight defendants at $30,000 each.
Tarrant County Judge Tim O'Hare said that due to conflict of interest rules, they must hire different outside attorneys for each employee named in the case.
Commissioners also approved up to $100,000 for an outside attorney for the case as a whole.
“The hiring outside counsel for the overall litigation strategy is just a prudent move to make sure we have the best legal counsel available to represent the sheriff’s office and the citizens of Tarrant County," O'Hare told NBC 5 after Tuesday's meeting.
The motion passed nearly unanimously, with only Tarrant County Commissioner Alisa Simmons voting against it.
“If we hire an outside firm, the first thing they’re going to do is mediate. So why can’t we mediate in-house with our district attorney’s office? Are we saying the competency level is not there?” Simmons said during court.
ANTHONY JOHNSON JR.
She said she expects the district attorney's office to return and ask for more money in litigation costs.
“It’s not going to be $100,000. We’re going to spend way more than that on fighting this family in an attempt to defend ourselves from something we clearly saw occur on camera, and that was the snuffing out of Anthony Johnson Jr.’s life," Simmons told NBC 5.
It's a concern some neighbors also raised during public comment on Tuesday.
"The best way to control costs here is to step back and seriously commit to a mediation process to respect this family’s grief, to acknowledge that Tarrant County does owe reparation to Mr. Johnson’s family, and to steward the county’s resources responsibly," said Dr. Harriet Harral.
"The cost appears to be enormous," said another neighbor, Julie Griffin.
“This will be spent in addition to the salaries already being paid to the civil district attorneys," added Reed Bilz. “They should already be working on mediation to resolve this case.”
Commissioners have previously approved outside attorneys for at least two other jailers named in the lawsuit, bringing the total tab to at least $400,000.
O'Hare said he's open to mediation but defended his vote on Tuesday to hire outside counsel.
“We’re going to spend dollars wisely and I believe what was done today is an efficient use of taxpayer dollars that hopefully gets us to a resolution on that case sooner rather than later," he said.
A grand jury indicted two jailers, Rafael Moreno and Lt. Joel Garcia, for murder in the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. That heads to the DA's office for prosecution.
