At a Friday hearing in Superior Court, an inmate appeared, charged with setting fire to his cell. The Jan. 28 episode at the Criminal Justice Complex on St. Thomas yielded a slew of charges, with arson listed as the top offense.
As he appeared for Advice of Rights before Magistrate Paula Norkadis, defendant Jimmy Davis showed he wasn’t finished yet. The lawyer representing him asked the magistrate to recuse herself from the case.
Davis again expressed dissatisfaction with the level of public service that he, as a criminal defendant, had received from the government. He complained about times when he was poorly represented by the Public Defender’s Office — a branch of Superior Court. And on at least one of those occasions, he said, Nokadis served as his public defender. For that reason and others associated with the current case, the magistrate may not be impartial.
Norkadis paused upon hearing the request, then agreed. She said she did not recall handling any case as a public defender representing the defendant, but if Mr. Davis wanted another magistrate, he’d have to wait until one was available from St. Croix, she said.
With that, the Friday hearing was continued until a time to be determined, and Davis was sent back to the St. Thomas jail, which is where this particular episode began.
In a document filed in court at the time of the incident, Corrections Lieutenant Roberto Monsanto said he was summoned to the cell block where Davis was detained and saw flames and smoke wafting out from the bottom of the door. Looking inside, Monsanto said he saw a pile of magazines and a red Corrections inmate uniform ablaze.
The cell was opened, corrections officers extracted the inmate, who admitted he set the fire and would do it again until they moved him to a different cell block. “Yeah, now ahyou got to f–king move me!” the defendant said, according to the filing.
Officers moved the rest of the inmates in the unit to another area and called Assistant Corrections Director Everett Hansen. After inspecting the scene, Hansen ordered that Davis be strip-searched inside his cell.
“While the strip-search was being conducted on inmate J. Davis, a small … lighter (red in color) fell out from between his legs,” Monsanto said.
Also found during the search was a two-inch knife blade wrapped in cloth and partially inserted in a body cavity.
Davis was charged with first-degree arson, destruction of property, disturbance of the peace, reckless endangerment, promoting prison contraband, promoting dangerous prison contraband, institutional vandalism, third-degree assault, aggravated assault and battery, and simple assault.
At the Friday hearing, Assistant Attorney General Brenda Scales adjusted the list of charges to drop misdemeanor reckless endangerment but to keep the charge at a felony level. The magistrate agreed prior to declaring herself recused from the case.
Police spokesman Glen Dratte said Saturday the defendant is scheduled for his next court appearance next week.
