CHARLESTON – A former Southern Regional Jail supervisor has been sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison for his role in covering up the 2022 beating death of an inmate.
Chad Lester was sentenced May 15 by U.S. District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin. Lester, 35, was convicted in January on two counts of tampering with a witness and one count of lying to the FBI.
During Thursday’s sentencing, Goodwin said Lester allowed the March 2022 beating death of Quantez Burks to happen because of the culture at the Southern Regional Jail in Raleigh County.
Lester
| File photo
“It was happening under your leadership and a long sentence is appropriate given the culture,” Goodwin said. “You condoned, obstructed and covered up. … You’re not remorseful, and you refuse to accept responsibility.”
And in a 10-page memorandum opinion, Goodwin delved deeper into the issue.
“Behind prison walls, abuse often goes unchecked,” Goodwin wrote. “Not so in this case. Here, correctional officers killed Quantez Burks. In response, defendant Chad Lester attempted to cover up the violence and directed their fabrication of reports to conceal correctional officers’ actions.”
Goodwin says only the most severe cases of prison abuse come to light.
“My 30 years on the bench convince me that many instances of mistreatment remain buried beneath layers of bureaucracy and institutional protection,” he wrote. “This not only harms the victims but also erodes public trust in the justice system.”
Goodwin says he knows prisons are dangerous and that “reasonable responses to inmate misbehavior and violence are required.”
“Correctional officers are empowered and obligated to maintain the safety of inmates and officers,” he wrote. “However, it is the unreasonable use of force that violates the Constitution.
“The explanations offered to explain unreasonable conduct by correctional officers and to conceal brutality carry no weight with me. The standard of human decency is required of everyone. Poor pay, lack of training, and underfunding are problems to be dealt with by the other branches of government and not excuses for unconscionable, inhumane, and unconstitutional treatment of those in custody of their government.
“Failures by those in positions of power destabilize the rule of law. The framework for law-abiding behavior is found in the Constitution which guarantees certain freedoms to everyone, including the incarcerated. Prisons must not be places where cruelty thrives in the shadows. Instead, they should be institutions of accountability and rehabilitation. If abuse is allowed, a culture of lawlessness thrives.”
He said government assumes a “profound responsibility to ensure humane treatment” when it takes control of an inmate’s life.
“Depriving someone of freedom is the sentence,” Goodwin wrote. “No further cruelty can be justified. When cruelty is brought to light, as it was in this case, it must be punished.”
Goodwin’s 10-page opinion provides background on the case and details of Burks’ beating.
“The 18-count indictment paints a grim picture of horrific abuse by uniformed officers tasked with upholding the rule of law within the jail walls,” he wrote.
One corrections officer said he delivered multiple unreasonable “knee-strikes” against Burks while he was restrained. Another said he used a chokehold that took Burks to the ground, and a third said he swung Burks forward and hit his head against a metal door.
“Before Mr. Burks’s death, defendants admitted to bringing other inmates to jail ‘blind spots,’ locations where there were no surveillance cameras,” Goodwin wrote. “There, the officers would ‘use unjustified force to punish’ inmates and avoid accountability for their actions.”
He says Lester is the only defendant who went to trial. Lester maintained his innocence in Thursday’s hearing.
Goodwin says Lester, a lieutenant at the jail, told lower-ranked officers to write false reports and relay false cover stories about the incident to investigators.
“This case illustrates the horrific conduct that is happening in our jails and prisons,” Goodwin wrote. “Too often these unconstitutional abuses go unnoticed and unpunished. No more. Chad Lester is the first of six in my court who will face the penalties of his criminal conduct. Conduct that took the life of another human being. Conduct that affronted the Constitution.”
Goodwin says the U.S. Constitution does not abandon those in prison, nor does it empower correctional officers to administer their own justice through physical violence.
“People are imprisoned as punishment not for further punishment,” Goodwin wrote. “Sadly, I agree with those who have concluded that American prisons are overcrowded bureaucracies that dissolve the difference between the jailed and the jailors such that the public develops ‘an institutionalized unwillingness to identify and reform systemic failures.’
“That unwillingness allows a culture of lawlessness to fester, and the abuses to continue. I have long observed that the prison system resists and often defies reform. It thrives in secrecy. Prisons are often out-of-sight and out-of-mind, built in remote locations, housing inmates far from their nearest family members.”
Goodwin says he regrets that society “has seemed to grow comfortable with the idea that the incarcerated are less than human and undeserving of basic constitutional rights.”
“Public ignorance or institutional apathy must not be permitted to protect correctional officers who abuse their power,” he wrote. “Scholars have observed that ‘[a]buse by staff in American prisons and jails is rampant. Correctional officers frequently assault and otherwise grievously injure incarcerated men and women.’
“This is evident in the data, and this case is but one flagrant example. … It is no surprise that there are not hundreds of prosecutions of correctional officers each year.”
Lester and seven other correctional officers were charged in Burks’ death, and six of them will be sentenced soon. One – Steven Nicholas Wimmer – was sentenced to nine years in prison and three years of supervised release after being convicted of conspiring with other officers to use unreasonable force against Burks.
Goodwin wrote Lester’s sentencing is for his leadership in such criminal conduct.
“This sentence will serve as notice to those who might abuse the trust placed in them: prison walls will not shield wrongdoing, and official authority will not excuse lawlessness,” Goodwin wrote. “I will not hesitate to impose harsh but just punishments on those correctional officials who flagrantly violate the public trust. To society at large, let today’s sentence underscore an unwavering truth — justice reaches even into the darkest corners of our institutions.
“Abuse of power is not excusable, and accountability is not negotiable. This is the cornerstone of democracy, and I am committed to preserving it without compromise.”