A state court jury awarded $18.5 million on Monday to the parents and estate of a Maryland prison inmate who was murdered by another maximum-security inmate about a state prison bus in 2005.
The six-member panel found the state and three correctional officers negligent, one grossly negligent and one not negligent for failing to prevent Philip Parker Jr.'s death. The state's obligation for negligence is limited to $200,000. The jury awarded Parker's parents and estate the $18.5 million as compensation for the victim's physical pain and mental anguish and his parents' emotional pain and suffering.
Parker's mother Melissa Rodriguez and father Philip Parker Sr. claimed the five officers aboard the bus didn't properly secure inmate Kevin Johns and didn't keep watch on the 34 prisoners as the bus rolled through pre-dawn darkness along Interstate 70 from Hagerstown to Baltimore on Feb. 2, 2005.
The Maryland attorney general's office had argued the officers weren't responsible because they didn't know Parker was in danger and couldn't see Johns strangling him in the darkened vehicle. Two of the officers were stationed in a caged area at the rear of the bus about seven feet from where Parker was attacked.
Johns was convicted in 2008 of murdering Parker but found not criminally responsible because of mental illness. It was his third murder conviction. He killed himself in prison in 2009.
Parker, 20, of Baltimore, was serving a 3 1/2-year sentence for attempted robbery.
Two of the officers were fired, one was allowed to retire and two were disciplined after the incident.
A spokesman for the attorney general's office says the state likely will file post-trial motions.
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