The Sacramento Bee, 2/23/11 reports on a jury trial that began Tuesday before Magistrate Judge Drozd over the Sacramento jail's alleged abuse of a pretrial detainee:
The curtain went up Tuesday in federal court on the trial of a case unlike any of the long list that have leveled excessive-force allegations against Sacramento County jailers.
Drake Jones claims that, while he was a Main Jail inmate in August 2008, four sheriff's deputies put him facedown in raw sewage, including human feces and urine, which was bubbling up from a drain in the cell floor.
The deputies and a supervising sergeant who witnessed what happened – all defendants in Jones' civil rights lawsuit – deny his version and insist it was "a clear liquid" that backed up out of the drain, covered the cell floor and spread under the door into the adjoining hallway.
Jones attorney Stewart Katz told the jury in his opening statement that it is a "sewer drain" and was emitting "brownish liquid with particles," including "shards of toilet paper." . . . .