Inmate at Licking receives six-figure payout from state after assault

Missouri officials have paid a six-figure bill to end a dispute over injuries suffered by a prisoner who was attacked by another inmate in 2018.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office reported Thursday that a check for $330,111 was issued in connection with convicted murderer Christopher Spates, who sued the state in 2018 after he was attacked in his cell at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking.

In his suit, Spates said he was beaten in his cell by another inmate. At the time, his hands were cuffed behind his back, preventing him from defending himself.

He argued the altercation was not a surprise because the two had fought earlier the same day, but correctional officers disregarded that information and put the two in a cell together anyway, with Spates cuffed and the other man unrestrained.

Spates is serving a life sentence for killing a woman outside of a St. Louis fast-food restaurant in 2011 before she could testify in an assault case.

Surveillance video from the restaurant’s parking lot showed Young entering a White Castle restaurant and returning to her car with food. The recording shows Spates running across the lot to the driver’s side door and opening fire. She was shot 11 times.

Spates was initially represented pro bono by Ginger Gooch, then an attorney with Husch Blackwell. Gooch is now a member of the Missouri Supreme Court.

In court, his attorneys argued that the correctional officers violated Spates’ Eighth Amendment guarantee to be protected from attack by other inmates. A federal jury agreed.

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH