The most dramatic moment in the deposition came when Roderick Gadson, an Alabama prison guard, was questioned under oath about an incident in which he and other officers used such devastating force against a prisoner that the man had to be airlifted to hospital to treat his injuries.
Gadson was shown a photograph of the man, Steven Davis. He was lying in an ICU bed breathing through a tube, his cadaverous face bruised and covered with blood, his eyes black and sunken.
