Plea agreement: Walker Co. Jail administrators supported punishing inmates

WALKER COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) - An eighth defendant agreed to plead guilty in the ongoing civil rights investigation into the death of inmate Tony Mitchell in the Walker County Jail.

Mitchell was housed naked in a cold jail cell for two weeks and died in custody in January 2023.

Megan Johnson is charged with conspiracy against rights. Johnson’s plea agreement speaks to the culture in the Walker County Jail which reportedly kept Mitchell from receiving the medical care he obviously needed.

It’s the first court filing that states jail administrators not only supported - but also celebrated punishing inmates for their conduct outside the jail, especially that involved harm toward law enforcement.

Mitchell reportedly shot at deputies who were called to his house to perform a welfare check. Court records say Johnson’s co-conspirators in the jail were ‘talking trash’ about Mitchell, saying, ‘“he should have been killed instead of being brought to the jail” and “he gets what he gets for shooting at cops,”‘.

Records confirm Johnson personally denied a nurse access to Mitchell, claiming he was too combative to perform a mental health screening, while knowing Mitchell was not a threat.

“On January 17, 2023, [Mitchell] was naked in [a holding cell] without bedding, was covered in feces, and was not oriented to time, place, and situation,” the court filing stated.

While Johnson knew the conditions were unhealthy for Mitchell, she didn’t want to be mocked by her fellow jail employees, so she didn’t intervene because she wanted to be, ‘one of the boys’.

While many of the details among the eight defendants' court records are the same regarding a perceived culture in the jail, Johnson’s plea agreement is the first to mention a situation in 2022 where she says excessive force was celebrated by jail administrators.

“During that meeting, Jail administrators praised the jailers who punched [an inmate] while he was restrained, and encouraged jailers to use excessive force on inmates in the future to exert dominance over the inmates,” court records stated.

Johnson used this incident as an example to explain her actions.

“Defendant Johnson understood from this episode that the Jail administration approved of the Jail’s prevailing culture of punishing inmates for conduct committed outside of the Jail and she acted accordingly toward [an inmate].”

According to an autopsy, Mitchell died from hypothermia and sepsis from medical neglect.

Sheriff Nick Smith declined to comment on this new charge. The other defendants charged in this case are Joshua Jones, Karen Kelly, Bailey Ganey, Heather Craig, Grayson Woods, Daniel Wyers and Daniel Brown.

Additional arrests are expected.

To read more stories about the death investigation of Tony Mitchell, click here.

Get news alerts in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store or subscribe to our email newsletter here.