Is $8.3 million justice in the death of Kansas teenager? Can repeat cases be prevented?
C.J. Lofton’s family will receive $8.2 million in compensation after the teenager's death in the juvenile justice system. (Photo by simpson33 via iStock / Getty Images Plus)
A Sedgwick County federal court jury recently awarded C.J. Lofton’s family $8.3 million in compensation for Lofton’s death at the hands of juvenile intake officers. They held Lofton facedown for more than 30 minutes, killing him.
“It’s a good development in the world of prolonged prone restraint in terms of a jury acknowledging how dangerous it is and the fact that it can be fatal,” John Marrese, an attorney for the family, told the Associated Press.
The Wichita community must have also felt relief that the court system held someone, somewhere, accountable for a death the coroner originally called “homicide.” District Attorney Marc Bennett had refused to prosecute.
Advocates and advocacy groups expressed joyous relief about the verdict.
But is this really justice?
Lofton’s killers weren’t even arrested, and Bennett faces little consequence for refusing to charge them. Law enforcement officers rarely are charged in these cases. Prosecutors, when reported, typically face sympathetic panels of their peers. Until citizens can lower these unreasonably high thresholds for accountability, we can expect more deaths like Lofton’s.
Our system works hard at casting wide nets for complicity and conspiracy charges in prosecuting, while working harder to confine the misdeeds of law enforcement officers to individual officers.
The Kansas City Star reported late last year that justice advocates said the suicide death of an infamous Kansas City, Kansas, detective should not excuse the unified government from decades of police misconduct and systemic racism that occurred on its watch.
“There has been no redress, compensation or admission of wrongdoing by KCKPD or the Unified Government,” according to a news release from the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity (More2), according to the Star.
The police detective, Roger Golubski, had faced six felony counts from his time as an officer during which as many as nine women and girls (one 13 years old) accused him of using his official power to rape them and spread a curtain of fear over KCK’s Black neighborhoods.
Yet authorities seemingly ask citizens to believe that Golubski acted alone and that no one else knew about or participated in his string of horrid crimes that also sent an innocent 17-year-old Lamonte McIntyre to prison for 23 years.
Stephen McAllister, a former U.S. Attorney and a current professor of law at the University of Kansas, recently shared his own frustration with trying to punish a wayward prosecutor. He spoke during a panel discussion at the Raven Book Store in Lawrence.
McAllister, a former Trump appointee who now teaches civil rights actions and federal constitutional law, said it’s difficult to hold police officers, prosecutors and judges accountable under certain circumstances.
It’s worth remembering that reports from the officers involved in George Floyd’s May 2020 killing bore little resemblance to the truth. The same with officers who beat and bludgeoned Rodney King. Nothing unusual happened, at least not from their point of view.
Except for video footage from each case, we likely wouldn’t know the names Floyd or King.
It’s not just law enforcement’s fault. Blame also rests with a voting public that continues to tolerate it by supporting the status quo.
A slight gust from the jury in Lofton’s case may signal change.
Jurors rejected arguments that his death resulted from a fringe diagnosis called “excited delirium,” a condition medical associations have discredited. Human rights advocates have said that law enforcement has used “excited delirium” to justify excessive force.
But sadly, for officials to be held accountable, we seem to require an extreme case like Lofton’s, a video, or both for victims to be considered human.
That $8.3 million verdict matters. It offers a semblance of accountability.
But is there really justice when it remains so difficult to hold individuals accountable for wrongful deaths?
Until this changes, those targeted in such situations — not law enforcement — will be the ones fearing for their lives.
Mark McCormick is the former executive director of the Kansas African American Museum, a member of the Kansas African American Affairs Commission and former deputy executive director at the ACLU of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.