Killer testifies in former inmate's lawsuit

One of the most dangerous inmates housed in the Utah State Prison testified via video-conferencing equipment Tuesday regarding his role in a fight that spurred a former inmate's million-dollar lawsuit.

State officials refused to allow death row inmate Troy Kell to be released from prison to appear on the witness stand in Jacques Dupree Miranda's lawsuit that accuses prison guards of allowing Kell, a known white supremacist, out of his cell to attack Miranda, a black Muslim. So with his own attorney at his side, Kell testified from the confines of a small room in the prison about the fight, which happened in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Kell said he knew Miranda was outside of his cell that night during recreation time and that once the door to his cell opened the men started fighting.

Kell denied knowing specifically which guard told him to put his shoes on, a warning that lets inmates know they will be let out of their cell, but he couldn't rule out the chance that guards might have set up the fight.

"I would hope not, but I don't know," Kell said. "Things like that happen though."

Kell would only say that the two men fought because they had a "difference of opinion," and he wouldn't say that Miranda's race was the reason for the fight.

But when Miranda's attorney asked if Miranda's religion was the reason the two men fought, Kell acknowledged that the environment after 9/11 might have created some tension.

"At the time, the circumstances, the ideology, the whole get-up, it didn't help," Kell said.

Miranda claims in his lawsuit that the guards in the unit were upset with him following the terror attacks and that they relayed information to Kell to attempt to incite violence towards him.

In his testimony, Kell admitted to having seen drawings of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden with Kell's name written on them, but he would not pinpoint who showed him the drawings.

This altercation was not the first time Kell has shown signs of being a dangerous inmate. In 1994, while serving two life sentences for murder at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison, he stabbed fellow inmate Lonnie Blackmon 67 times with a homemade knife. Prosecutors said the slaying was racially motivated because Blackmon was black. During the altercation with Kell, Blackmon was stabbed in the neck, chest, face and eyes, and witnesses said Kell shouted "white power" while strutting around afterward.

When asked Tuesday if he could have killed Miranda the night of their fight, Kell acknowledged that he could have, but didn't. Instead he admitted to putting a choke hold on Miranda until he was unconscious.

Miranda's trial continues throughout the week, with other inmates and corrections officers expected to testify.

E-MAIL: ethomas@desnews.com