The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in cases involving the deaths of persons in custody.
The first involves a man who died in the back seat of a Tift County squad car after being verbally abused and tied up. The other involved a man who was allegedly beaten to death by Fulton County prison guards.
The judges’ rulings will have a major impact on the accused and the families of the dead, but could also set a precedent for how police officers are given immunity when their actions result in the death of a detainee and how prison guards are treated under the law.
The court usually decides within 60 days of the hearing.
Detained prisoner
In the first case, the Supreme Court will consider what it means to ‘use’ a vehicle.
In April 2019, Tift County officers took James Aaron McBrayer into custody after an altercation in which they used a taser on him.
Officers allegedly loaded McBrayer face down in the back seat of a squad car, handcuffed his hands and feet and strapped his legs to the car door, preventing him from moving, and left him unattended for more than 10 minutes.
MacBrayer died in that car. His widow, Sherrie McBrayer, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tift County Sheriff Gene Scarbrough, arguing that her husband died because he was carelessly loaded into the vehicle.
Scarbrough argued that the lawsuit should be dropped because of sovereign immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government officials from lawsuits. McBrayer’s attorneys referred to state statutes that describe negligent use of a vehicle as the basis for waiving sovereign immunity.
A trial court and the Georgia Court of Appeals sided with Scarbrough, ruling that the squad car was being used as a holding cell rather than a vehicle at the time of McBrayer’s death.
The judges tried to determine what is meant by the ‘use’ of a vehicle.
“If I asked you, ‘Hey, can I use your car tomorrow?’ What scope would you envision that being?” Judge Andrew Pinson asked Craig Webster, an attorney representing McBrayer. “Probably to take your car and drive it somewhere, or use it to get supplies from one place to another. So you’re looking for a much broader definition – maybe not much more expansive, but a little more expansive – for loading, holding. So bring me from this ordinary understanding to what you ask.”
Webster argued that vehicles could have many uses, citing as an example utility trucks, uses of which could include lifting workers to repair electrical wiring, and the key point is that the vehicle in question is owned, operated and insured by the government.
Webster also cited court rulings in which he said loading students onto a school bus was considered a use for that vehicle.
“Our argument is that loading a vehicle, people in a vehicle, constitutes the use of a vehicle, as has been shown in the school bus cases, and there is also insurance, which in this case no one has claimed does not cover that event,” he said. “Since the vehicle is being used and the vehicle is insured, there is a waiver of sovereign immunity.”
suspicion of death
Judges also heard arguments in the case of six former Fulton County jailers charged with crimes related to the death of inmate Antonio May while he was in custody for trespassing.
According to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, the six allegedly beat, pepper-sprayed and verbally abused May in September 2018.
A grand jury indicted the jailers on felonies, including aggravated murder, but the Fulton County Superior Court blocked the indictment, ruling that because the suspects were peace officers, they had the right to appear before the grand jury but were not given that right.
Willis and her attorneys argue that this was a mistake because the rank of the six suspects at the time of the arraignment did not qualify them as peace officers under state law.
There are two definitions of peace officers under state law. The definition quoted by the Supreme Court applies to anyone “who, by virtue of his office or public employment, has a legal obligation to maintain public order or to make arrests for a criminal offense”. Prison guards did not have the power to make arrests, but the court found that they had a duty to maintain public order and were therefore peace officers.
Assistant District Attorney Charles A. Jones Jr. told the judges that the Supreme Court should have considered the narrower definition that would require them to have the power to arrest, but even under a broader interpretation, guarding a prison does not equate to maintaining law and order.
“I think a normal person on the street would understand it this way: are you maintaining the public peace as opposed to a specific situation?” Jones said. “I mean, that’s what we’re looking for here, and what the court was alluding to here is sort of a limiting principle, because otherwise anyone responsible for maintaining any kind of order is automatically a peace officer.”
“All mothers would be peace officers because they keep order between siblings,” Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren said.
“Yes, I think so. Certainly I would have feared that in my case as a child, but yes, anyone who maintains any kind of order, and we use for example the examples in our Commission of Judges, Trial Judges and Teachers, keeps order in their classroom. Many of your honorary members were former trial judges and you kept order in your courtrooms, but that doesn’t make you peace officials.”
Lawyers representing the prison guards told the judges that the Supreme Court had made the right decision and that their clients’ duties extend beyond the prison walls to the maintenance of public order. As examples they gave the protection of visitors to the prison and ensuring that suspects do not escape.
“Let’s look at it this way,” said attorney Amanda Clark Palmer. “If someone came to the jail in security who’s not an inmate but is visiting or whatever and they have contraband and there’s a jailer on security, I don’t think anybody would think that jailer would say, ‘Oh, could you stay here while I get someone to arrest you?'”
“I think that’s correct,” said presiding judge Nels SD Peterson. “But why is this maintaining public order and not some sort of confiscated jail warrant?”
“Maintaining order in prison helps maintain public order in our community,” Palmer said. “It protects members of our community from people who are destined to go to jail for a reason.”
