POTSDAM, New York (WWNY) – More than a decade after he was first detained by Potsdam village police, Nick Hillary is about to have his day in court.
Hillary’s lawsuit against the village, two current officers and a former police chief goes to trial in an Albany courtroom Monday.
Jury selection is set to begin at 9:30 AM, before federal judge Gary Sharpe.
Hillary claims Potsdam police violated his civil rights, as they singled him out right from the start as the only suspect in the death of 12 year old Garrett Phillips.
Hillary, a Black man who was Clarkson University’s soccer coach at the time, had been in a romantic relationship with Phillips’ mother.
Hillary was found not guilty of killing Phillips in 2016, after a dramatic trial before a judge in St. Lawrence County Court.
Hillary’s lawsuit against the village has been making its way through the courts for years, and Judge Sharpe ruled Friday that the only claims left for a jury to consider are false imprisonment, a claim regarding police seizing Hillary’s cell phone without a warrant, and whether the village can be held accountable for the officers’ actions.
Phillips was found dead on the evening of October 24, 2011.
By the next day, police had Hillary as their suspect, and the day after that ordered him to the police station, refused to let him leave and made him strip all his clothes off – they then photographed him in the nude.
His cell phone was seized, although police didn’t get a warrant for it until two days later.
Ultimately, police turned up no physical evidence to connect Hillary to the crime, nor witnesses, nor confessions, though the village’s lawyers are now seeking permission to present DNA evidence which wasn’t allowed at Hillary’s murder trial.
The investigation of the case and Hillary’s arrest raised questions of race and justice in the north country, especially since – as North Country Public Radio points out – police did not detain another ex-boyfriend of Phillips’ mother, a former sheriff’s deputy.
The murder of Garrett Phillips has never been solved.
Copyright 2022 WWNY. All rights reserved.
