Lawyer: River Edge board immune from liability in Macon slaying

A lawyer representing the River Edge Behavioral Health Center Community Service Board argued in a Monday hearing that the board is immune from the claims the mother of a patient killed by another patient has brought in a wrongful death lawsuit.

River Edge Behavioral Health Center, Cherry Tree Hill Apartments and Phoenix Residential Management LLC -- other defendants in the suit -- have entered into confidential settlements with Teresa Howard, whose son, Antonio Brown, was killed in 2012.

While being treated for schizophrenia, seizures and substance abuse, Brown was moved to Cherry Tree Hill Apartments on Old Clinton Road in east Macon, Howard's lawyer Neal Graham said during the hearing in Bibb County Superior Court.

River Edge should have known Brown's roommate, Bobby Lee Rozier, was a known violent felon, he argued.

Brown, 28, was fatally beaten, stabbed and strangled within a week of moving in, Graham said.

Rozier, 39, pleaded guilty last year to killing Brown and was sentenced to life in prison. He's also named as a defendant in Howard's suit.

Assistant Attorney General Ron Boyter argued on the board's behalf during Monday's hearing that the case should be dismissed based on the board's immunity claim.

"The law is basically settling this," he said.

River Edge is a state mental health provider, a provider of "last resort" regardless of whether someone can pay, Boyter said.

"To do our jobs, to make sure that people are given services, there has to be some protection," he said.

Otherwise, the state may have to stop providing services or start choosing which patients they'll serve instead of helping all who qualify for services, he said.

Superior Court Judge Verda Colvin asked Boyter how people can be protected if the state is immune to liability.

Boyter replied that ultimate responsibility rests with the governor and that voters can vote him out of office.

Graham argued that allowing the state and legislators to decide when the state is responsible is "amounting to the fox guarding the hen's house."

Without a civil means of redress, "the state is going to continue on this same path," he said.

River Edge released a statement earlier this year saying the facility wasn't aware of anything in Rozier's background to suggest he had violent tendencies, that Rozier seemed satisfied living with Brown and hadn't made any threats to harm him.

"It was at their request that they changed roommates to live together," River Edge CEO Shannon Harvey has said.

State prison records show Rozier was incarcerated from January 1995 to September 1999 after being convicted of burglary, attempted burglary, vehicle theft and car break-ins.

It's unclear when the judge will issue a ruling.

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398 or find her on Twitter@awomackmacon.

This story was originally published December 14, 2015 at 10:17 PM with the headline "Lawyer: River Edge board immune from liability in Macon slaying ."