Feds begin civil rights probe in Taser case

ROBBINSVILLE – A deputy’s repeated use of a stun gun on a handcuffed Graham County man is being examined for possible civil rights violations by the federal Department of Justice and the FBI, which collected evidence in the case earlier this week.

The excessive force used against Jack Slaughter while being held in the Graham County Sheriff’s Office amounted to flagrant violations of his constitutional rights, Superior Court Judge Bradley B. Letts found in an August decision.

Slaughter suffers from permanent memory loss from the repeated and unnecessary shocks from a Taser, Letts said in his decision.

The judge ordered that a pending first-degree murder charge against Slaughter be dropped based on his inability to assist with his own defense. The decision could be a first of its kind regarding use of the electronic devices.

Two Asheville-based FBI agents visited the Graham County Sheriff’s Office on Monday or Tuesday, where they collected the department’s Slaughter case files, a defunct Taser policy and the stun guns, Chief Deputy Jerry Crisp said.

The department’s Tasers, numbering 13 or 14, included one used on Slaughter, Crisp said. Use of the devices has been barred under Sheriff Danny Millsaps, who in 2014 defeated former Sheriff Mickey Anderson.

Anderson is visible in portions of a video recording of the 2012 incident, one that shows Slaughter being repeatedly shocked as he is in handcuffs.

The FBI agents told officers they were examining possible civil rights violations, Crisp said.

A Department of Justice spokesperson Friday confirmed the Charlotte FBI Field Office, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of North Carolina have opened a civil rights investigation.

From his home in Murphy, Slaughter said federal agents had not contacted him, but he is glad an outside agency is examining the case.

“I am pleased that, finally, someone is operating on, not necessarily on my behalf personally, but on behalf of anyone put in that situation,” Slaughter said.

Deputies under Anderson in 2012 detained Slaughter on suspicion that he had stolen a vehicle. They took him to the Graham County jail where a video camera captured 56 minutes of a visibly dazed Slaughter in a small booking room, usually surrounded by several deputies.

After he attempted to kick an officer, Slaughter was punched in the head by a deputy, who Letts in his decision identified as former Deputy Travis Moody. The punch knocked Slaughter to a table and left a laceration, while Moody required six stitches on his hand.

Brought to his feet, Slaughter soon after walked toward a door and was shocked with a Taser by former Deputy Larry Jenkins. Slaughter fell back into a metal filing cabinet, again cutting his head, while barbs from the device remained attached to him.

The video recording has no audio, and, in part because Slaughter remains on the floor through much of the incident, it’s difficult to tell how often he is shocked. Taser cartridges used in the incident, which would typically log use of the devices, have never been located.

Letts, in a timeline, documented that Slaughter had been shocked seven times in less than 30 minutes and noted that deputies, who sometimes outnumbered Slaughter 4 to 1, never attempted to use more humane restraints such as leg shackles or a restraint chair.

Slaughter’s criminal attorney, Victoria Jayne, said she also has not been contacted by federal agents but hopes the agency also carefully reviews the video recording, as Letts did.

“The first time I ever saw it, it was a sickening punch in my stomach to see a person who was obviously psychotic in handcuffs not posing any imminent threat to anybody, being literally punched around and electrocuted over and over again. I have never see anything like it in my 30 years of practicing law,” Jayne said. “I have never seen law enforcement treat anyone like I saw them treat Jackie Slaughter, and I don’t think it makes a difference in the world that this is one of our smaller, poorer counties in North Carolina. The standards are no different, and there’s just no excuse for it.”

More than a year after he was held while being shocked and punched, Graham County deputies charged Slaughter with the murder of Robert Smith. That killing occurred April 5, 2012, the same day Slaughter had allegedly stolen a vehicle.

In dropping those and related charges, Letts determined Slaughter had no memory of the events because of damage brought by the abuse and cannot assist with his own defense.

Jayne would like to see a criminal investigation of the deputies who used excessive force, a move that has been rejected by District Attorney Ashley Welch.

Welch inherited the Smith homicide case when she won the office in 2014, and said any bad acts against Slaughter by law enforcement officers would, in her view, qualify as misdemeanors, but cannot be prosecuted at this point. The statute of limitations has expired on those lower-level charges.

Asked if repeated use of a Taser rise to an assault with a deadly weapon with intent to seriously injure, a felony charge that does not have an expiration date, Welch said that case is not winnable.

“Jackie Slaughter would be a witness for the state. A jury in Graham County is not going to convict anybody when a man who murdered somebody is your victim,” she said. “When we look at prosecuting a case, there are several things that go into play, and one of the things is, ‘Is it justice?’ The second is, ‘Are we going to be successful?’ At the end of the day – what happened to Jackie Slaughter is unacceptable – but he’s also gotten away with murder.”

Jayne, however, believes there were deep flaws not only in the treatment of Slaughter, but also the investigation into him. She maintains he did not dodge a murder rap on a technicality.

“It’s important that the community not think someone got away with murder, because that, in our opinion, absolutely did not happen," she said. "The same people that inflicted those injuries on Jackie also did the investigation, and our investigation reveals completely different suspects. We have offered that information to the district attorney.”