A federal jury has found no wrongdoing by the Kenton County Detention Center’s staff in the death of a man at the hands of his cellmate.
The jury’s verdict came on Feb. 26, at the end of a three-day civil trial in federal court in Covington. U.S. District Judge Chad Meredith issued a formal judgment reflecting the jury’s decision on March 2.
Tonya Jones sued the county, Jailer Marc Fields and other jail staff for wrongful death in December 2023, about six months after the killing of her father, 61-year-old John Daulton.
In court filings, she alleged that “multiple system breakdowns” at the jail contributed to her father’s death, claiming that officials disregarded policy by placing Daulton in an isolation cell with another man, who was documented as having “violent tendencies.”
“We respect but are disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Paul Hill, Jones’ attorney, said in a statement. “We are considering our options regarding appeal.”
What happened to John Daulton?
On the afternoon of May 14, 2023, Kenton County police were called to the jail for a report of an unresponsive person, according to a criminal citation.
When officers arrived, they found Daulton had been attacked by Johnathan Maskiell, then 32, the only other person inside the cell. A deputy jailer on watch at the time told police he heard two loud “thuds” and ran to the cell, where he saw Maskiell stomp twice on Daulton’s head.
While the deputy intervened in the assault, Daulton suffered multiple facial fractures along with a brain bleed, the citation states. He was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he died a week later.
Daulton was booked into jail on the evening of May 13, 2023, for an alleged probation violation. Maskiell was arrested by Covington police and booked in jail on two outstanding warrants roughly five hours later.
Attorney says county is ‘vindicated’ by verdict
Jones alleged in the lawsuit that jail staff improperly placed Daulton in an isolation cell for mental health concerns, over the recommendation of a nurse who asked about suicidal ideation and cleared Daulton for housing in the general population. The suit also accused jail staff of disregarding policies by placing Maskiell in the same cell as Daulton, despite warnings of Maskiell being prone to violence.
Maskiell was left in the cell with Daulton for nearly 11 hours before the attack, the lawsuit states, and staff didn’t check on them every 10 minutes, per the jail’s policy for high-risk cells. The lawsuit attributed the circumstances leading to Daulton’s death to a “series of colossal errors” in jail policy and procedure, as well as a lack of training and supervision.
However, the county’s attorneys argued that jail staff performed routine checks on the cell every 20 minutes, as required by state law. They said there’s no evidence of anything unusual happening inside the cell, before Maskiell “reportedly heard voices telling him to kill Daulton.”
Both Daulton and Maskiell answered screening questions that resulted in clinical social workers with a third-party organization recommending the men for suicide watch. The attorneys said that state regulations and jail policy permit two such inmates to be housed in the same cell.
The nurse who medically cleared Daulton for placement in the general population wasn’t qualified to remove him from suicide watch, the attorneys said. She testified that while with both men, she didn’t perceive Maskiell as a threat to Daulton, court records state.
“This case was litigated for more than two years and after a 3-day trial and 2 hours of deliberation the jury vindicated the county and its policies,” Christopher Nordloh, an attorney representing the county, said in a statement.
Documents show Maskiell sought mental health help before killing
Maskiell pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder in April 2024 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He said in court that he didn’t mean to kill Daulton, noting struggles with mental illness, including hallucinations.
“I’ve tried to get help,” Maskiell said at his plea hearing.
Shortly before Maskiell was booked into the Kenton County jail, he went to the UC Medical Center, seeking admission to a mental health ward, Meredith Simpkins, his attorney, said at the time of the court proceedings.
Hospital records from Maskiell’s visit the day before his arrest state that he was diagnosed with substance-induced psychotic disorder. He was then discharged back to Talbert House, a social services nonprofit that provides addiction recovery, mental health and halfway house programs.
Court records state that Talbert House had referred Maskiell to the hospital’s psychiatric emergency department.
While a social worker noted that Maskiell expressed hallucinations, saying he wanted to “kill everybody,” court documents state, a doctor found that Maskiell lacked abnormal or psychotic thoughts.
“In my professional opinion, (Maskiell) is more likely than not to have [substance] induced mood disorder and malingering than true psychosis,” the doctor concluded in hospital records.
Maskiell walked away from Talbert House the day after his hospital visit and was unaccounted for until his arrest, according to the documents.
Daulton’s daughter also filed suit against the medical center. She alleges that clinicians failed to perform an appropriate psychiatric evaluation, failed to diagnose Maskiell’s condition properly and discharged him while in a psychotic state.
The hospital denied the allegations and has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. That case is ongoing in federal court in Cincinnati.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Jury finds no wrongdoing by NKY jail staff in inmate’s killing
Reporting by Quinlan Bentley, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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