Criminal Justice and Police Accountability

A New York jury has begun deliberating whether former corrections officer Michael Fisher is guilty of second-degree manslaughter for allegedly standing by for about seven minutes as fellow guards fatally beat inmate Robert Brooks in the Marcy Correctional Facility infirmary on Dec. 9, 2024. Special prosecutor William Fitzpatrick argued in closing that body‑camera video shows Fisher close enough to physically intervene yet doing nothing while officers struck Brooks with a shoe, lifted him by the neck and dropped him, contributing to the 43‑year‑old Black man’s death. Fisher’s attorney, Scott Iseman, countered that his client walked in after the assault was under way, lacked a full view of the scene and could not know the extent of Brooks’ injuries "without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight." The case is the last of 10 indictments stemming from the beating, following one murder conviction, two acquittals and six guilty pleas, and comes amid broader turmoil in New York’s prisons that included an illegal three‑week guards’ strike, more than 2,000 firings, National Guard deployments and a separate set of indictments over another inmate death. Advocates say that despite some reforms triggered by the Brooks footage, chronic understaffing and systemic brutality persist across the state system.