First day of testimony in Sheriff Victor Hill trial

CLAYTON COUNTY< Ga. - Testimony began Thursday in the trial of suspended Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill.

A federal grand jury indicted Hill in 2021 on charges that he violated the Constitutional rights of multiple pre-trial detainees inside the Clayton County Jail by ordering them strapped into restraint chairs for hours at a time.

"Sheriff Hill took it upon himself to teach them a lesson," Assistant United States Attorney Bret Hobson told jurors during his opening statement.

The seven alleged victims had all been arrested and taken to the jail, but prosecutors stressed they had not yet been convicted of a crime.

"The evidence will show that there was no need for force," AUSA Hobson said.

Hill's defense team, however, argued that his job as sheriff requires him to provide for the safety of both the detainees and the staff inside the jail, which houses anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000 inmates every day.

"The intake process is the most volatile time at the jail," said Marissa Goldberg, one of Hill's attorneys.

She defended the use of the restraint chair as a law enforcement tool and said disagreements over policy should not lead to criminal charges.

"It is legal.  It is common," Goldberg explained.

The prosecution's first witness was LeConte Jackson, a former captain at the Clayton County Jail.  Jackson worked in the facility from Feb. 2014 to Oct. 2020 and rose through the ranks, eventually working on the Scorpion Response Team, or SRT, which he described as an elite unit that served as a SWAT team for inside the jail.

Jackson recounted the day that one of the alleged victims, Joseph Arnold, was brought into the facility.  Arnold was arrested on charges that he struck two women during a dispute at a grocery store and Sheriff Hill personally spoke to him during the booking process.

"[Sheriff Hill] told [Arnold] that he shouldn't hit women," recalled Jackson.  "He was just standing there listening."

Prosecutors showed video of the exchange between Arnold and Sheriff Hill.

"Am I entitled to a fair and speedy trial?" Arnold asked Hill multiple times.

"You're entitled to sit in this chair," Sheriff Hill replied.

Jackson testified that when Sheriff Hill ordered that someone be placed in a restraint chair that they were to be kept there for four hours and no one besides the Sheriff could order their release. 

"Did you see any reason on this day for Mr. Arnold to be strapped into a restraint chair?" the prosecution asked.

"No, sir," said Jackson.

The second prosecution witness was Officer Hannah James, who briefly worked at the Clayton County Sheriff's Office from May 2019 to Oct. 2020. She was the sheriff's deputy who transported another alleged victim, Glenn Howell, to intake when he came to turn himself in on a misdemeanor charge of harassing phone calls.

According to court testimony, Howell, a landscaper, had been involved in a dispute with one of Sheriff Hill's deputies, who had not paid him for work on his property.  Sheriff Hill got involved and called Howell himself.

When Howell tried to confirm that he was, in fact, the sheriff, prosecutors said Hill told him to stop contacting him.  Sheriff Hill later got an arrest warrant for Howell and sent deputies to arrest Howell at his home in Butts County.

Howell later turned himself in.

Surveillance video showed Howell sitting calmly inside the jail and cooperating with staff who searched him.  Prosecutors pointed out that for several minutes Howell was left unsupervised in the intake area.

Later, Sheriff Hill can be seen on the surveillance video speaking to Howell and then deputies placing Howell in a restraint chair.

"Was he ever violent?" Assistant United States Attorney Brent Gray asked. 

"No, sir," responded Officer James.

"Was he ever threatening?" Gray followed.

"No, sir," Officer James said.

She also recorded the video of the exchange between Sheriff Hill and Arnold on her cell phone, which she later turned over to the FBI.

The defense tried to paint Officer James as a "disloyal" employee who was disgruntled after being moved off the sheriff's office fugitive team.

A third witness testified about the sheriff's use of force policies and annual training.

"All we do is we hear from the people of Clayton County overwhelmingly communicating to us, reaching out to us saying, 'Can you get us our sheriff back? Can you get the person that we've elected that keeps us safe in our community?'  And it's just time for this trial to keep on moving in this direction so he can get back and be the active sheriff that the people of Clayton County have chosen," said Drew Findling, one of Hill's defense attorneys.

The trial is slated to resume Friday around 9:30 a.m.