‘EXTREMELY DISTURBING’: GUARD WHO ADMITTED KILLING ROBERT BROOKS GRANTED BAIL PENDING APPEAL
DECISION CALLS INTO QUESTION GUILTY PLEAS OF OTHER DEFENDANTS IN THE ROBERT BROOKS AND MESIAH NANTWI CASES
Former state prison guard David L. Walters being taken to prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for killing Robert Brooks. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
MALONE, NEW YORK Dec. 10, 2025 Last updated: 9:08 PM
One of the prison guards who pleaded guilty to killing Robert Brooks was gifted an early Christmas present when a State Supreme Court justice in Watertown granted him bail pending appeal on Wednesday.
David L. Walters was expected to be released as early as Wednesday evening after Justice James P. McClusky granted his request for release on bail pending his appeal in a decision published Wednesday afternoon.
Justice McCluskey set Walters’ bail at $50,000 cash or $100,000 bond.
The decision was first reported by WKTV 2 in Utica.
"Extremely disturbing" is what the special prosecutor in the Brooks case, Onondaga County District Attorney William F. Fitzpatrick, called the decision in an electronic message to The Free Lance Wednesday evening.
Fitzpatrick added "an Appellate Division judge already denied the application of another defendant on the same issue."
That was former sergeant Michael Mashaw, who was sentenced beside Walters on Nov. 21.
Fitzpatrick's office secured Walters' guilty plea and opposed his application for bail pending appeal.
Nicholas A. Passalacqua, Walters' lawyer, used a crafty litigator's technique to get his client's application for release on bail pending appeal to a Republican judge in one of New York's most rural counties.
Justice McCluskey became nationally infamous in 2019 when he sentenced a 26-year-old man who raped a 14-year-old girl to probation instead of prison. He’s also lucky. McClusky was the sole Republican to hold off a Democratic onslaught in the Fifth Judicial District to win re-election to a second 14-year term this past November.
While most convicted defendants ask the appellate division to consider requests for release on bail pending appeal, Passalacqua applied to a judge in Watertown because § 460.50(2)(b)(ii) of New York's Criminal Procedure Law allows these applications to be made to "a justice of the supreme court of the judicial district embracing the county in which the judgment was entered."
Oneida County, where Walters pleaded guilty, and Jefferson County, where Justice McCluskey is based, are both part of New York's Fifth Judicial District.
Walters' bail application centered on whether what he pleaded guilty to is actually a crime.
While manslaughter is clearly a crime, Passalacqua argued that what Walters specifically pleaded guilty to was not a crime. Walters admitted "having a duty to intervene" and failing to stop Brooks' murder.
According to Walters, although he admitted he had a "duty to intervene," he didn't actually have a legally enforceable "duty" to stop his fellow Correction Officers from killing a prisoner in their custody.
Justice McClusky's decision impliedly but necessarily says Walters is right—or at least that his argument is so strong he has at least a 50/50 chance of winning.
But even if Walters did not have a legal duty to intervene and Brooks killing, that's what the law calls “harmless error” because there's an additional and independent factual basis to sustain Walter's manslaughter conviction.
Walters' argument and Justice McClusky's decision ignores that Walters also admitted—and video shows—he "verbally instructed" a nurse who "attempted to enter the emergency room to attend to Mr. Brooks" to "not to enter the emergency room."
In other words, even if Walters did not have a legal duty to intervene to stop other guards from killing Brooks, his admission that he stopped a nurse from aiding Brooks is enough in itself to make him guilty of manslaughter.
Fitzpatrick, the special prosecutor, said late Wednesday night his office was "checking" to see if it could appeal McCluskey's decision.
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