The former sheriff of a suburban Atlanta county become sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in federal jail on civil rights costs associated with his remedy of incarcerated people, consistent with americaA District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
Victor Hill, formerly the Clayton County sheriff, become located responsible in October 2022 on six counts associated with incidents wherein prosecutors stated he ordered detainees to be strapped right into a restraint chair and left there for hours.
Restraint chairs are every so often utilized in prisons and hospitals to govern folks that may want to injure themselves or others. Hill`s orders “precipitated bodily ache and led to physical injury” to the detainees, courtroom docket files stated.
On Tuesday, US District Judge Eleanor Ross sentenced Hill to 18 months in jail observed through 6 years of supervised launch and a hundred hours of network service.
After the sentencing, protection lawyer Drew Findling stated the Department of Justice had chased a “brilliant object” in prosecuting Hill as opposed to addressing deeper troubles withinside the jail system, including using solitary confinement.
“The reality that he has been singled out, to us, nevertheless stays extremely of a disgrace,” Findling stated. He delivered he plans to enchantment the case. CNN has reached out to the sheriff`s workplace for a statement.
The sentence comes approximately years after Hill become indicted on federal civil rights costs for guiding his personnel on the Clayton County Jail to strap pretrial detainees right into a restraint chair for an immoderate length in 4 separate incidents in 2020, consistent with a launch from americaA Attorney`s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. He had pleaded now no longer responsible to the costs.
Hill become first elected as Clayton County sheriff in 2004 and misplaced a reelection bid 4 years later. He received in 2012 to go back to the placement and maximum these days become reelected in 2020 as an unopposed candidate. In the wake of the indictment, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp suspended him from his position.
Hill as sheriff has now no longer been with out controversy, intending to the picture of a tough-on-crime administrator who activists and critics have felt has abused his powers. On his first day in workplace in 2005, he fired 27 deputies and had them escorted out in their constructing as snipers had been placed outside, consistent with CNN associate WSB. Courts intervened and the deputies had been later reinstated.
In 2013, he become acquitted on extra than dozen costs alleging he had used the workplace for non-public gain, consistent with WSB. In 2015, Hill fired a pistol that struck and wounded a chum at her place of business in Gwinnett County, consistent with CNN associate WXIA. The sufferer instructed government the taking pictures become unintentional and Hill endured his tenure as sheriff.
In 2020, the Clayton County Sheriff`s Department become worried in an immoderate use-of-pressure incident, which the branch stated become difficulty to an inner research asked through Hill. The deputy in query become fired rapidly after.