Former county jail inmate awarded $20K by jury for excessive force
Plaintiff sought millions of dollars in 6-year-old case
A federal jury awarded $20,001 to a man who claimed Macomb County Jail corrections officers used excessive force against him six years ago.
The eight-person panel awarded $20,000 — all but $1 of the total — in punitive damages to Brian P. Hyde, 42, Tuesday following eight hours of deliberations and a five-day trial in front of Judge Jonathan J.C. Grey in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The $1 was for pain and suffering damages.
Hyde sought $34 million.
He claimed Constitutional violations, alleging corrections deputies blindfolded him, bound his hands, placed a bag over his head and put him in a restraint chair July 14, 2018. He said the officers then beat and tortured him and shocked him multiple times in his groin area and left him in the chair for up to five hours.
The eight-person jury unanimously found three of five deputies who remained as defendants in the lawsuit committed excessive force. The county was removed because the
plaintiff didn’t show the sheriff’s office failed to train its officers.
Hyde’s trial attorney, Michael Jones, said while disappointed in the amount awarded, Hyde was glad the jury found excessive force was used, and he had his day in court.
“He wanted his day in court,” Jones said. “That’s why it proceeded to trial.”
He said a settlement offer was made but it was made before he joined the case and didn’t know the amount.
With the $1 award, the jury found that Hyde suffered virtually no ill effects from the incident.
Hyde complained of a concussion but was not diagnosed as having one and complained of broken ribs but X-rays at the jail indicated
they were not broken, Jones said. He also suffered facial bruising, he alleged.
Hyde’s case was damaged by him failing to seek therapy for psychological damage, Jones said, adding Hyde remains impacted by the incident and feels “paranoid that he will get picked up” by Macomb Sheriff’s deputies.
Some of the incident was captured on video.
For his actions in the incident, Hyde pleaded no contest to two prison-employee assault charges in December 2018 in Macomb Circuit Court in Mount Clemens. He was sentenced in February 2019 to time-served, 271 days, by circuit Judge James Maceroni.
Jones said Hyde plead
on the day of the trial, Feb. 18, 2019, because he was offered the timeserved deal from prosecutors. Hyde was in jail at the time for a domestic-assault charge, which was later dropped.
Following the incident, he was placed in an isolation cell for nearly seven months, until Feb. 12, 2019.
The county says Hyde was restrained because he threw urine on a deputy from his cell. Video shows corrections officers restraining him so they can draw his blood in an attempt to link him to the urine.
Hyde has denied he threw urine, saying another inmate did it. The county likely will pay the money from its liability fund.