$600,000 Awarded So Far in Disgraced Georgia Sheriff’s Trial for Abusing Detainee in Restraint Chair
by Chuck Sharman
A jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia awarded $600,000 in compensatory damages on December 4, 2025, to a former pretrial detainee at the County jail who was punished with placement in a restraint chair and then a suicide-watch cell by Victor Hill, the disgraced former Sheriff of Clayton County. The next day, however, jurors failed to reach an agreement on punitive damages; a mistrial was declared, and a new trial was ordered to determine the amount of those damages.
The compensatory damages award still stands for Glenn Howell, the former detainee, including $350,000 for the excessive force used against him, $150,000 for the pain he suffered and $100,000 for the emotional distress caused when Hill had him held in a restraint chair for six hours at the jail and then left him in a suicide-watch cell wearing only a paper gown for another eight hours, following an arrest in April 2020.
The details leading up to the arrest are equally disturbing. As described in his complaint, Howell’s landscaping business had performed work under contract at the home of Sheriff’s Dep. Lt. Josh Guthrie. When a dispute arose, Guthrie ordered Howell to cease work and leave his property. The dispute continued via text messages, with the two exchanging threats—Guthrie threatened to arrest Howell, who promised to sue for nonpayment of the work he performed at the deputy’s home.
That’s when Hill got involved, calling to threaten Howell with arrest if he pursued the debt further. Howell said that he was unsure it was really the Sheriff on the other end of the line—he lives in another county—and that profanity was used. He also placed a video call to see if Hill answered. When he did, though, Hill refused to lower the mask he was wearing (this was just a month after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic) and refused to identify himself in subsequent text exchanges with Guthrie.
Instead, the Sheriff obtained an arrest warrant accusing Howell of making harassing communications. On April 27, 2020, Howell turned himself in, and he said that Hill was waiting for him. “[D]o I look like a motherfucker now?’ the Sheriff demanded. He then had Howell strapped into the restraint chair—so tightly and for so long that he later needed orthopedic treatment for his injured wrists, according to the complaint he later filed. Upon release, he was stripped and placed in a paper smock to be held another eight hours in an “exceptionally cold” suicide watch cell, without any evidence that he was a suicide risk. There he remained until his court appearance, after which Howell bonded out of jail that day.
Sheriff Removed from Office, Imprisoned
Eventually, as PLN reported, he became one of five men whose ordeals in the Clayton County Jail formed the basis of a federal prosecution of the Sheriff, which resulted in his conviction in October 2022 for violating their civil rights. Hill was sentenced to an 18-month federal prison term in March 2023, a decision affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in April 2024. [See: PLN, Apr. 2023, p.61; and Nov. 2024, p.39.].
Hill was removed from office by Gov. Brian Kemp (R) in December 2020, shortly after his federal indictment was unsealed. But that was six months after Howell filed his suit in the district court. With delays for Hill’s criminal trial, there was no ruling on his motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity (QI) until November 27, 2023, when the district court denied the motion. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed denial of QI on March 4, 2025. See: Howell v. Hill, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 232144 (N.D. Ga.); and 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 5037 (11th Cir.).
The case proceeded to trial on December 1, 2025. Four days later, jurors made their award of compensatory damages to Howell. The following day, however, they failed to agree on punitive damages, resulting in a partial mistrial. PLN will update results of the new trial when it occurs. He is represented by attorney Darryl L. Scott of his eponymous law office in McDonough. See: Howell v. Hill, USDC (N.D. Ga.), Case No. 1:20-cv-02662.
It was unclear what became of the harassing communications charge against Howell, but apparently no verdict against him was entered into evidence in the trial. It was also unclear whether he will be able to collect his judgment from Hill, who was banned from law enforcement employment upon his release from federal prison. Howell’s chances of collecting any portion of the judgment from Clayton County are also unclear, given that the County did not defend its former Sheriff, who also lost a motion at the district court to force the County to provide him counsel.
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Related legal case
Howell v. Hill
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (N.D. Ga.), Case No. 1:20-cv-02662 |
| Level | District Court |