Article published April 15, 1999
Hattiesburg American
By Cathi Carr

Wrongful death suit winds way through court

The $10 million wrongful death lawsuit filed against Jones County Sheriff Maurice Hooks and the state of Mississippi is winding its way through federal court. A case management conference that was postponed last month should be re-scheduled soon.

“We’re waiting for the courts to decide,” said Brandy Turner, who filed the lawsuit after the death of her husband, Moody Ala., police officer Keith Turner.

Turner, 29, was killed June 27, two days after inmates Mario Centobie, 32, and Jeremy Granberry, 19, escaped from Hooks, who was transporting them in violation of state law. The lawsuit, which presents one side of a legal argument, questions why Centobie was being transported to Jones County as well as the way the inmates were restrained.

Specifically, the lawsuit states the inmates were not handcuffed and that no “Biddle guard” was used to keep them in the back seat of Hooks’ patrol car.

Hooks and Butler were transporting the two maximum security inmates from the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman to Jones County in a vehicle that was not equipped with a Biddle guard, a protective cage separating them from the two prisoners.

A 1989 state law requires the cages in all vehicles used to transport maximum security state prisoners. Gov. Kirk Fordice signed a law Thursday that would fine violators $1,500.

“There’s no way to restore the loss this baby (Turner’s 1-year-old daughter Ashlynn) has endured,” said Hattiesburg attorney Carroll Ingram, who filed the suit in U.S. District Court in November. “This lawsuit is for law enforcement, not against it. Every law officer has his heart in the right place for Brandy and her baby because they know that they’re a second or an inch away from being in the same place.”

Hooks and three other defendants have asked U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering to dismiss the lawsuit against them or grant them “limited immunity” from the civil suit. Hooks said the Biddle guard law prohibits law officers from being held personally liable for damages in his court motion.

Named in the suit are: Hooks, Butler, Jones County Public Defender David M. Ratcliff, Jones County Assistant District Attorney James R. Stricklin, Jones County District Attorney Jeannene T. Pacific, Gov. Kirk Fordice, the Jones County Board of Supervisors and the Mississippi Department of Corrections.