Correctional officers deal with scum on a daily basis, much more so than cops do.
Cops arrest the scum and drop it off at the local jail, where they don’t have to deal with that particular scum any further and can go out searching for new scum.
Correctional officers deal with that scum day in and day out until they’re sentenced and taken to prison. Then prison guards have to deal with that scum for long, long, long periods of time - unless the scum is a baby-raping child molester, in which case he’ll usually get out in 5 years or less.
Sometimes the scum attacks a correctional officer or officers. When they do, there’s this thing called the use of force continuum.
Basically, the use of force continuum is a guide for officers to follow when presented with resistance on the part of the subject. The inmate resistance levels go from simple psychological intimidation to deadly force assault. The officers’ responses range from officer presence to deadly force, based on what resistance the subject is using. In all instances, officers are supposed to use the minimum required force to control a situation.
Jose Rodriguez Jr. was a correctional officer in Texas. He’d been hired in 2005 and was working in a Texas prison.
Somewhere along the way, in November of 2007, the paths of 28-year-old Jose Rodriguez Jr. and 52-year-old Paul Ray Judia crossed. Paul Ray Judia was a transfer inmate serving a 10-year sentence for burglary.
At some point, Paul Ray Judia thought it would be a good idea to kick officer Jose Rodriguez Jr. in the testicles.
Moments later, Officer Jose Rodriguez Jr., not liking the state of his testicles at all, responded to this attack by slamming Paul Judia’s head into a cell wall while trying to gain control of the situation.
Now, that’s what the news reports say, of course. Reality is often somewhat different. There were probably some words exchanged between the officer and the inmate while this was going on. However, Officer Jose Rodriguez was not accused of repeatedly slamming Paul Judia’s head against the wall, or hitting him, or kicking him or anything else that might be considered excessive force.
Officers, when presented with a combative inmate, are instructed to secure that inmate against the wall or floor or some other hard surface in order to control that inmate enough to get his hands behind his back for handcuffing. Walls are usually made of concrete or cinderblock. A wall can hurt when your head is slammed into it.
This particular wall was either especially hard or Paul Judia’s head was especially soft. Either way, Paul Judia died after spending three days in the hospital, which is sad.
Officer Jose Rodriguez Jr. probably did not mean to kill Paul Judia. Officer Jose Rodriguez Jr. was probably in considerable pain from the kick to his testicles. Despite that pain, he fought through it and got the job done.
While the death of an inmate is serious business, according to the force continuum Officer Rodriguez would have been perfectly justified in doing just about anything in the seconds after being kicked in the nads. A kick to the testicles can be considered deadly force assault and an appropriate response to that level of attack is deadly force.
Don’t want to have your head smashed into a wall? Don’t kick a guard in the nuts. That sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Correctional officers are not paid to fight fair with inmates. We are not hired to let them get the first shot to the jaw in. We’re not hired to be an object of their aggression.
Correctional officers are hired to keep order within the facility. For the most part, they do a pretty good job.
The officer was, of course, charged with murder by local prosecutors. He faced 99 years in prison if found guilty. Knowing the system and having as little faith in it as most other correctional officers, Jose Rodriguez Jr. took a plea deal and pled guilty to manslaughter.
The sentencing went to a jury, who reviewed the evidence, shook their heads and said:
It is the unanimous judgment of this jury that if we had the option of finding Mr. Rodriguez innocent we would have done so.
The jury, who could have sentenced Jose Rodriguez Jr. to 20 years in prison and given him a $10,000 fine, gave Mr. Rodriguez two years of probation and levied no fine.
Mr. Rodriguez will probably never be kicked in the balls again.
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That inmate got of lucky. Kick me in the nuts and I’ll give you a reason to beg God for mercy. He would’ve received no quarter from me.
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good job jury.
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Someone buy that jury a beer.
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Kicking someone in the nads… while not deserving of the death penalty via old sparkey, one should expect some type of like response……
While said incident should rightly be investigated, the procesucters should go after criminals with the zeal that they did when going after the gaurd.
The jury should have given him $10,000 for pain and suffering - nads are worth at least that!
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Good for Rodriguez and good for the jury who saw an obvious miscarriage of justice and used its powers to correct it. Correctional Officers are the unsung heroes of the criminal justice system. The next time you see one, thank them.
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Probation for what?! Drop the probation!
It should be a clean wash. The man was just doing his job.
Be glad Rod didn’t visit the POS in the hospital, ski-lift him off the gurney and ram his head into the wall again. I would have done that and it would’ve been well worth the $10,000 fine and some more shit!
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so he did or didn’t get the 20 years? He plead guilty…why wouldn’t he just go to trial?
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BOb reply on May 13, 2008:
learn to read?
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Liz reply on June 7, 2008:
He didn’t get the 20 years. Admin was only saying they could have given him but instead they just let him go with 2 years of probation. That was probably only because he pled guilty to manslaughter.
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dang Admin…the commentators on here got a whole new bunch of attitude since I’ve been gone….what’s with that?
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So much is made of the whole ‘kicking someone in the balls’ offense.
Not discounting that, but really, for women, that would be no less painful. Kicking ANYONE in the groin is cause for head/wall dancing.
My eldest threw a mean, fast pitch at me, which my left breast managed to ‘catch’, and believe me, excepting a groinal kick, it was one of the most painful things I’ve ever felt. If he wasn’t my son, and if we weren’t playing a friendly game of ‘let’s see the 10-year-old- throw a pitch like a pro’, I’d have sued his little ass.
Testicles aside, even if this guy had just poked a finger into the guard’s chest, he’d deserve a head slam. I’m pretty sure the rules in prison include not touching the guards. On their chests or nether regions.
And yes, it is too bad that his head happened to be softer than the wall.
The good that may come of this is that now I’m informed that if I’m ever in prison, I should probably not attack a guard’s groin unless I’m planning to take a dirt nap.
c
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Rodriquez should have got a bonus for saving the taxpayers some money!
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I wonder if the jury was aware that they did, in fact, have the option of finding the defendant guilty. Juries have a hell of a lot of rights they don’t generally know about, including the right to nullify a law they find unconstitutional. As quoted from the Fully Informed Jury Association ( http://www.fija.org/ ) “When you serve as a juror, you can veto bad laws ~ or good laws if those laws are misapplied in the case before you. You have the authority to render a verdict based on conscience.”
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ninjaturtle reply on June 5, 2008:
*not* guilty, obviously. It’s been a long day….
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