Alabama prison officer guilty over death of inmate who froze to death in jail

A former prison officer has pleaded guilty to criminal charges after an inmate froze to death in a US jail.

Tony Mitchell, 33, died at Walker County Jail in Alabama on 26 January 2023, after being arrested on 12 January.

He was detained after his cousin asked officers to do a welfare check on him over concerns he was talking about "portals to heaven and hell" and suffering a mental breakdown.

Joshua Conner Jones, a prison officer there at the time, agreed to a guilty plea on one count of conspiracy to deprive an inmate of their rights after Mr Mitchell was left naked in his concrete cell.

Although federal court documents did not name Mr Mitchell, Jones's defence laywer W Scott Brower confirmed the charge was in relation to his death.

Jones also pleaded guilty to another rights deprivation charge in relation to a second inmate.

Court documents showed there are potentially five co-conspirators in Mr Mitchell's case, suggesting more people could be charged.

Mr Mitchell, who had a history of drug addiction, died after being brought from the jail to hospital, where medics found he had a temperature of 22C (72F).

Hypothermia, which can be fatal, is diagnosed when the body drops below 35C (95F). A normal body temperature is around 37C (99F).

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According to court documents, in a lawsuit filed by his mother, Mr Mitchell "was almost always naked, wet, cold, and covered in faeces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket" during his two-week incarceration.

By the second week of incarceration, he was "largely listless and mostly unresponsive to questions from officers," the plea deal papers say, but Jones and his co-conspirators did nothing to alleviate his suffering.

Prosecutors say in the same paperwork that Jones admitted: "Collectively we did it. We killed him."

Jones will be sentenced in due course.