by David M. Reutter

Sheriff Chad K. Nichols (R) of Georgia’s Rabun County was sentenced on September 13, 2024, to five years of probation and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty to violation of oath by a public officer. That followed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirming a sentence handed to former Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill for abusing pretrial detainees at the county lockup. Clayton County Commissioners also approved a $5 million settlement with one victim.

Republican voters in Rabun County faced an unusual choice in the run-­off primary election for Sheriff on June 18, 2024, between Mark Gerrells, the county jail administrator, and Nichols, who had been his boss until an arrest during an election rally just weeks before on May 21, 2024. That’s when the 45-­year-­old Nichols allegedly tried to coax the victim into a building and, when she refused, got naked in front of her to perform “a sexual act.”

Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Christian referred the accusation to the state Bureau of Investigation on May 24, 2024. Nichols turned himself in one week later to face charges that also included sexual battery and public indecency. He was released on a $32,500 bond. On June 14, 2024, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) suspended him. Three days later, County Chief Superior Court Judge Russell Smith appointed Chief Deputy Elizabeth “Beth” Darnell to serve as acting Sheriff. Another four days after that, Nichols lost the primary.

 That effectively made Gerrells the Sheriff-­elect, since he faced no opposition in the November 2024 election. In anticipation of winning that, he was sworn in to finish Nichols’ term on October 3, 2024. Meanwhile Nichols resigned and surrendered his peace officer certificate, as dictated by the terms of his sentence. He also waived his Fourth Amendment right not to be searched without a warrant and apologized to the victim, agreeing to have no contact with her.

Former Clayton County Sheriff’s Sentence Affirmed

Earlier, on April 29, 2024, the Eleventh Circuit upheld the convictions of former Sheriff Victor Hill for violating the civil rights of pretrial detainees at the Clayton County Jail (CCJ). As PLN reported, Hill was sentenced to 18 months in prison and six years of supervised release on March 14, 2023, after a jury convicted him on six counts of deprivation of rights for using a restraint chair to punish the detainees—who, since they were not convicted, should not have been punished at all. [See: PLN, Apr. 2023, p.61.]

Hill appealed the verdict, but the Eleventh Circuit rejected his arguments. First, the Court found that Hill had fair warning his acts were criminal; “that is, that he could not use gratuitous force against a compliant, non-­resistant detainee.” The Court also found sufficient evidence to support jurors’ conclusion that placing the detainees in the restraint chairs lacked any legitimate non-­punitive purpose. Finally, the district court had properly responded to alleged juror misconduct, the Court said, affirming the convictions and sentence. See: United States v. Hill, 99 F.4th 1289 (11th Cir. 2024).

Days later, on May 3, 2024, one of Hill’s alleged victims filed a civil rights complaint seeking compensatory damages from the former Sheriff and CCJ medical contractor CorrectHealth Clayton LLC, for injuries incurred in a restraint chair. Raheem Peterkin was arrested in December 2019 after allegedly pointing a gun at two men and barricading himself in his apartment. His complaint filed in federal court for the Northern District of Georgia recalled that Hill said he would have “riddled [Peterkin’s] ass with bullets,” had he been present at the arrest, and then ordered jailers to “[p]ut that bitch in the chair.”

Peterkin was handcuffed behind his back and placed in a restraint chair for four hours. Though he was in obvious distress, CorrectHealth staff allegedly failed to intervene, in violation of policy. Peterkin suffered scars on his wrists and urinated on himself in the chair, his complaint alleged. He is represented by Atlanta attorney Zack Greenamyre of Mitchell, Shapiro, Greenamyre & Funt LLP. See: Peterkin v. Hill, USDC (N.D. Ga.), Case No. 1:24-­cv-­01945.

$5 Million Payout for Restraint Chair Victim

Hill said that he ran CCJ like a “paramilitary facility” with “lots of rules,” similar to those found “in a military boot camp.” But Gabriel Arries, another detainee held in a CCJ restraint chair, said he was also “repeatedly, maliciously, and violently” beaten when arrested in February 2021. He was left with no memory of the attack, according to a suit he filed in the same federal court, and only pieced together what happened once transported to an Atlanta hospital.

“I was just in awe of it. It’s horrible,” Arries said.

Arries was flying from California to visit family in Virginia when he lapsed into a psychotic episode during a layover in Atlanta. After he allegedly shouted racial slurs at Hill’s deputies, they beat him and placed him in a restraint chair, he said, before tossing him in a holding cell with other detainees—who beat him again when his psychosis didn’t abate and he called them slurs, too. His complaint said that they left his face covered in open wounds and feces. CorrectCare staff later transferred him to a hospital with “life-­altering brain damage and other injuries, including a severe traumatic brain injury, subdural hematoma, subarachnoid …  hemorrhage, a closed fracture of the nasal bone, and left-­eye blindness,” the district court later recalled, when it denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss on August 30, 2022. See: Arries v. Hill, 686 F. Supp. 3d 1279 (N.D. Ga. 2022).

The parties then proceeded to reach a $5 million settlement agreement, which Clayton County commissioners voted to approve on July 11, 2024. Arries was represented by Atlanta attorneys Alwyn R. Fredericks and David N. Krugler with Cash, Krugler & Fredericks, LLC, as well as Kurt G. Kastorf of Kastorf Law, LLC and Lisa E. McNary of Morgan & Morgan, PLLC. See: Arries v. Hill, USDC (N.D. Ga.), Case No. 1:21-­cv-­03588.  

Additional sources:  Clayton Tribune, Now Habersham, WAGA, WSB, WXIA

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