ALBANY, New York (WWNY) – A jury is deliberating whether Potsdam police violated the rights of Nick Hillary, who was accused and later acquitted of murder.
Nick Hillary’s lawsuit against the village, two current officers, and a former police chief went to trial in an Albany courtroom Monday.
Hillary, a Black man, 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.
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 witnesses, no confessions, and no physical evidence to connect Hillary to the crime.
Hillary, who was Clarkson University’s soccer coach at the time, had been in a romantic relationship with Phillips’ mother.
The investigation of the case and Hillary’s arrest raised questions of race and justice in the north country, especially since police did not detain another ex-boyfriend of Phillips’ mother, a former sheriff’s deputy.
Hillary was found not guilty of killing Phillips in 2016 after a 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 federal Judge Gary Sharpe ruled last Friday that the only claims left for the 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.
Garrett Phillips’ murder has never been solved.
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