ATTORNEYS FOR TWO JAILERS REST THEIR CASE

GALVESTON -- Attorneys for two men accused of violating a Missouri
inmate's civil rights at the Brazoria County Detention Center in 1996
rested their case Wednesday.

Defendant Wilton David Wallace told jurors he is not guilty of using
excessive force on the inmate, while co-defendant Robert Percival did
not testify.

The third defendant, David Cisneros, began telling his version of the
Sept. 18, 1996, incident when U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt
recessed the trial until today.

Wallace, 52, who was employed by a private jail management firm
overseeing the Missouri inmates, said he merely nudged inmate Toby
Hawthorne with his foot and never kicked him.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Gerald Doyle, Wallace admitted
it wasn't necessary for him to plant his foot in the back of the prone
inmate, who, moments earlier, had been bitten by a police dog being
handled by Cisneros.

Terry Pelz, a criminal justice consultant and a former assistant
warden with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice who viewed a
30-minute videotape of the incident, supported Wallace.

He testified that Wallace didn't use excessive force or kick
Hawthorne, 22, a convicted murderer from East St. Louis, Ill.

Prosecutors claim Wallace and Percival, 37, kicked the inmate even
though he had complied with orders to lie on the floor and crawl down
a hallway. Hawthorne also was zapped with a stun gun wielded by
another sheriff's officer who has pleaded guilty to a civil rights
charge.

About 400 Missouri inmates, sent to Texas because of prison
overcrowding in their state, were described by sheriff's officers as
verbally abusive and threatening after being brought from a lockup in
Crystal City in South Texas.

Brazoria County Sheriff Joe King testified that he expected to receive
medium- and minimum-security inmates, but instead received some
convicted of serious offenses.

King admitted under cross-examination that a videotape of the handling
of the Missouri inmates exposed jail personnel's embarrassing behavior
that he had hoped would remain hidden from the public.

He also conceded that a letter sent to the Texas Commission on Jail
Standards and signed by him was untruthful. He denied writing the letter.

The letter, written five days after the jail shakedown, said jailers
had smelled marijuana burning and that two inmates were bitten by a
police dog after one tried to kick the animal and another attempted to
rise from the floor.

King, sheriff the past 19 years, acknowledged that no marijuana was
ever confiscated and that a videotape never showed inmates trying to
kick the police dog or attempting to disobey orders to lie on the floor.