News media coalition wins appeal over records of death of Black man in NC jail
The N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the Forsyth County district attorney had no authority to have sealed the records of how a Black man died in the Forsyth County jail.
Reporters from The News & Observer filed public records requests in 2020 with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, after Forsyth County authorities had withheld from public knowledge that 56-year-old John Neville died from injuries sustained at the jail.
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill learned in January 2021 that DHHS was prepared to give those records, including the State Bureau of Investigation’s file on Neville’s death, to The N&O. He went to Forsyth County Superior Court Judge David Hall to have the records sealed.
Mike Tadych, an attorney for a coalition of media outlets including The N&O, argued that O’Neill lacked the authority and jurisdiction to have the records sealed and failed to notify the reporters, the newspapers and their attorneys before doing so.
“We agree with the media coalition,” wrote Court of Appeals Judge John Arrowood. “Because the District Attorney failed to follow the requirements of the Rules of Civil Procedure in filing its Objection and Request for Temporary Protective Order, and because no authority exists to provide the trial court jurisdiction over the relief sought by the District Attorney, we dismiss this appeal.”
The court sent the case back to the trial court with further instructions. The ruling did not address the question of whether the records should be public.
The media coalition, at the direction of Hall, brought a secondary lawsuit against DHHS for the records that is ongoing in Raleigh.
Neville’s death
Neville died on Dec. 4, 2019, after deputies at the Forsyth County jail held him on his stomach with his arms behind his back and his legs raised to his wrists — a position that is known to cause breathing trouble and death. A medical examiner ruled that Neville died from positional and compressional asphyxiation that led to a heart attack and brain injury.
Neville, a Greensboro resident, had been arrested near the county line and brought to the jail on a warrant taken out by a woman at the magistrate’s office for assault.
At the jail he suffered from a medical emergency that caused him to fall from the top bunk of his bed and wake his cellmate who called for help.
A SWAT team responded, along with a nurse who believed he was having a seizure.
Neville woke confused and combative before deputies placed him in the position known as prone restraint. It’s the same position that George Floyd was placed in before his death in Minneapolis Police custody.
Secrecy
Forsyth County deputies and prosecutors failed to publicly acknowledge Neville’s injuries and death until The N&O, acting on a tip, filed a request nearly six months later in the county asking a judge to release body camera footage that captured what happened with Neville in the jail.
The judge approved the release of the video footage that showed Neville telling deputies more than 30 times that he couldn’t breathe before he lost consciousness. A deputy argued with Neville, telling him that he must be breathing because he was talking. The deputies did try to remove Neville from his handcuffs but ended up breaking a key and a bolt cutter before finally freeing him more than 11 minutes later.
Shortly after the newspaper filed for the videos, O’Neill announced he was charging five deputies and the nurse with involuntary manslaughter in Neville’s death.
Last month, a grand jury declined to indict the five deputies in Neville’s death, but did indict Michelle Heughins, the responding nurse who worked for Wellpath, the medical company that Forsyth’s jail contracted with at the time.
“It is shameful that another Black life has been extinguished at the hands of law enforcement and yet still, there is no accountability and no justice,” Neville’s son, Sean Neville, said in a written statement last month. “We will continue to fight for what is right and just.”
This story was originally published May 3, 2022 at 1:26 PM with the headline "News media coalition wins appeal over records of death of Black man in NC jail."
