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Georgia's Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill has a federal indictment against him over accusations he held inmates in a restraint chair and will head to trial.
The indictment says he violated the civil rights of five people who were held at the county jail. Hill's lawyers said that, under any law, the sheriff's use of a restraint chair does not equal excessive force, arguing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Bly that the charges against their client should be dismissed.
Prosecutors argued Hill used excessive force when directing others to put the men in a restraint chair without justification and as punishment.
Bly advised against dismissing the indictment in a Dec. 29 filing, recommending that the motion be denied and said the case was ready for trial.
Bly wrote the idea "that a law enforcement officer may not use force against a detainee who is complying—is neither novel nor new." He mentioned that the indictment claims that Hill "used force against pretrial detainees who were complying with law enforcement instructions."
Bly wrote that Hill's lawyers said: "that there is no case law making clear that the use of restraint chairs amounts to the use of force at all, let alone excessive force." He "simply cannot agree that placing someone in restraints, to a degree that they cause physical pain and bodily injury (as is alleged as to each of the detainees), does not amount to the use of 'force,'" Bly wrote.
Drew Findling, an attorney for Hill, said in a phone interview that he will ask the U.S. district court judge who gets assigned to the case to review the magistrate judge's decision.
"We're not losing sight of the fact that, reviewing the facts of the case itself, that the sheriff is completely innocent of those charges," Findling said.
The indictment alleges that the men were improperly held in a restraint chair for hours even though they had complied with deputies and posed no threat. They suffered pain and bodily injury as a result, prosecutors have said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in June suspended Hill until the charges against him are resolved or until his term of office is over, whichever comes first. A Fulton County Superior Court judge last month declined Hill's request to order the governor to reinstate him as sheriff.
Hill has previously said the case is politically motivated. His lawyers have argued that the U.S. Department of Justice has never brought criminal charges for any behavior similar to what's alleged in the indictment and that prosecutors targeted him because of his controversial past as sheriff in Clayton County, just south of Atlanta.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
