Law Florida jury gives family $.04 for wrongful death

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Family stunned after jury awards 4 cents in dad’s death by cop
By Lia Eustachewich

June 1, 2018 | 10:33am

Gregory Hill, his fiancee and two of his childrenGoFundMe
The fiancée of the armed Florida man killed by cops responding to a noise complaint said her “heart just dropped” when she learned the jury awarded the grieving family a mere 4 cents.

Monique Davis stormed out of the courtroom when the miserly award was announced in court Thursday, according to NBC News.

“My heart just dropped,” Davis recalled. “It was like, are y’all serious?”

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Family awarded 4 cents for man's death by cop
Davis’ husband-to-be, Gregory Vaughn Hill Jr., was killed in 2014 by sheriff’s deputy Christopher Newman, who had responded to the 30-year-old’s Fort Pierce home on a complaint of loud music.

Newman — who claimed Hill pulled a gun out — shot the father of three as his garage door was closing.



Hill was later found with an unloaded gun in his back pocket.

His mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Newman and St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara — and jurors effectively cleared the cops of any wrongdoing.

After 10 hours of deliberations, they found Mascara was just 1 percent responsible for the shooting death — and assigned 99 percent blame to Hill, who was drunk at the time.

Jurors awarded $1 for funeral expenses to Hill’s mom and a buck each to his three kids, ages 7, 10 and 13. The total award was reduced to just 4 cents, though, because of Mascara’s 1 percent of negligence.

The family’s lawyer, John Phillips, was stunned.

“I’d have rather seen a zero than have to tell the children that their pain and suffering for losing their father is only a dollar,” he said Thursday. “Either it was punitive or they viewed these children’s pain as virtually worthless.”

 

[usernames can change now!]

death by cop is the correct justice for loudly blasting shitty rap

 

[drtoboggan]

Would have been funnier if it was 3/5 of a dollar.

 

[Mr. Poker in the Front Liquor in the Rear]

4 cents is an insult at least give the family a pack of Newports and a book of matches.

 

[IV 445]

I think the jury smelled a lottery lawsuit attempt.

Monique Davis stormed out of the courtroom when the miserly award was announced in court Thursday,

“My heart just dropped,” Davis recalled. “It was like, are y’all serious?”

Why is it always about money? And of course there’s a GoFundMe for them, too.

 

[ForgottenAcct]

I think the jury smelled a lottery lawsuit attempt.


Why is it always about money? And of course there’s a GoFundMe for them, too.

Reading another article on it, the guy was apparently shot through the garage door as it had already closed to the extent that the cop shot into the garage through the door, and the funeral costs were ~$11k. Funerals, even without the bells and whistles, get expensive when it's a sudden death and you need a plot/etc extremely short notice.

Still, a $1 payout to each relative is definitely a bitch move. Either say fuck off and give them nothing or cover burial expenses: don't be petty.

 

[Wesley Willis]

You know what they can buy with that 4 cents?

 

[dunbrine47]

.04? I thought I read somewhere that it was 4 dollars. Oh well there are still penny stocks to invest in.

 

[ES 148]

Florida Jury is just Florida Man times twelve.

 

[GodWarrior]

Florida Jury is just Florida Man times twelve.

Publix makes this state tolerable.

 

[Some JERK]

“I’d have rather seen a zero than have to tell the children that their pain and suffering for losing their father is only a dollar,”

I know it would never happen, but I would love to see the court claw back the money based on this quote.

 

[TowinKarz]

.04? I thought I read somewhere that it was 4 dollars. Oh well there are still penny stocks to invest in.

It was 4 bucks, but the law specifies who gets what, and the family only gets ten per cent of any awarded penalties.

 

[RG 448]

For the sake of fairness they should divide the cop’s salary to figure out what he makes per minute, mutiply that by the number of minutes it took him to pull the trigger, then arrest him and put him in prison for killing a man who was just playing loud music. And then adequately compensate the family for the death of a human being like a normal state.

 

[AF 802]

Publix makes this state tolerable.

I haven't even been to Florida and I agree, from the Publix I've been to on the Alabama coast. Pretty nice.

But yes, kind of a dick move (really, more like a dick move times a hundred). What sane individual would award $.04, mind less than a cent?

 

[TowinKarz]

I cant seem to find any info on exactly what the jury heard.

All the sites reporting agree that the man was shot in his own garage while closing the door on a pair of cops responding to a noise complaint,

Was there a confrontation, were verbal orders given? Nobody seems to know or be giving details, just focusing on the award non value.

Id like to know exactly what they heard that made them think that little of what seems like a clear cut case of unwarranted force.

 

[Catetive]

.04? I thought I read somewhere that it was 4 dollars. Oh well there are still penny stocks to invest in.

It was 4 bucks, but the law specifies who gets what, and the family only gets ten per cent of any awarded penalties.

"After 10 hours of deliberation last week, a jury found that Newman was not liable in Hill's death and that Mascara was 1% liable. Hill was 99% responsible for his own death, the jury ruled, according to court documents.
In deciding damages in the case, the jury awarded Bryant $1 for funeral expenses, and $1 for each child's "loss of parental companionship, instruction, and guidance and ... mental pain and suffering," verdict forms show.
Because the jury found that Mascara was only 1% responsible, the verdict was reduced to 4 cents, and then, because the jury found that Hill was drunk at the time, the final payout was nothing."

I cant seem to find any info on exactly what the jury heard.

All the sites reporting agree that the man was shot in his own garage while closing the door on a pair of cops responding to a noise complaint,

Was there a confrontation, were verbal orders given? Nobody seems to know or be giving details, just focusing on the award non value.

Id like to know exactly what they heard that made them think that little of what seems like a clear cut case of unwarranted force.

The jury heard that a woman picking up her kid from a school across the street called in a noise complaint for the house after hearing loud music from the garage. Testimony showed Hill was playing Drake's "All Me," a song rife with F-bombs and N-words. The mother took offense and called police. The officers arrived and knocked on the garage door. It opened, and an officer screamed that Hill had a gun. The garage door then started to go down. The officer shot through the door 4 times, hitting Hill twice in the abdomen and once in the head.
Not realizing Hill was dead, the deputies called for a SWAT team and snipers, according to the lawsuit. They kicked in doors and cut holes in the garage door, the suit claimed.
"Deputies shot tear gas canisters into the Hill home through many windows while severely damaging the windows and interior of the home and leaving toxic tear gas residue in the home," the lawsuit said. Once inside, officers found Hill dead with an unloaded handgun in his back pocket, not his hand, court records show. Toxicology would later show Hill was intoxicated, to the point he could not legally drive. Officers claim Hill was playing with the gun when they arrived, the family refutes this claim.
All sources can be found here (yes CNN is gay but they're the only ones seemingly giving info).
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/us/f...our-dollar-jury-award-gregory-hill/index.html

 

[RG 448]

"After 10 hours of deliberation last week, a jury found that Newman was not liable in Hill's death and that Mascara was 1% liable. Hill was 99% responsible for his own death, the jury ruled, according to court documents.
In deciding damages in the case, the jury awarded Bryant $1 for funeral expenses, and $1 for each child's "loss of parental companionship, instruction, and guidance and ... mental pain and suffering," verdict forms show.
Because the jury found that Mascara was only 1% responsible, the verdict was reduced to 4 cents, and then, because the jury found that Hill was drunk at the time, the final payout was nothing."

The jury heard that a woman picking up her kid from a school across the street called in a noise complaint for the house after hearing loud music from the garage. Testimony showed Hill was playing Drake's "All Me," a song rife with F-bombs and N-words. The mother took offense and called police. The officers arrived and knocked on the garage door. It opened, and an officer screamed that Hill had a gun. The garage door then started to go down. The officer shot through the door 4 times, hitting Hill twice in the abdomen and once in the head.
Not realizing Hill was dead, the deputies called for a SWAT team and snipers, according to the lawsuit. They kicked in doors and cut holes in the garage door, the suit claimed.
"Deputies shot tear gas canisters into the Hill home through many windows while severely damaging the windows and interior of the home and leaving toxic tear gas residue in the home," the lawsuit said. Once inside, officers found Hill dead with an unloaded handgun in his back pocket, not his hand, court records show. Toxicology would later show Hill was intoxicated, to the point he could not legally drive. Officers claim Hill was playing with the gun when they arrived, the family refutes this claim.
All sources can be found here (yes CNN is gay but they're the only ones seemingly giving info).
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/us/f...our-dollar-jury-award-gregory-hill/index.html

If that’s really how it went down, that’s “pay the family out the ass and fire the officer responsible if you’re not going to imprison him” levels of screwing the pooch. Was the jury afraid the cops would target them if they found the officer liable? Them being intimidated is the only reason i can imagine that they’d reach such a verdict.

 

[A Useless Fish]

This whole thing is baffling to me. Who decides in cases like this what money is meant to be paid out? Is there a procedure, or is it all really up to whatever the judge thinks it should be? If the guy's ruled as being 99% responsible for getting shot, then why not just clear the cop entirely? What's the point of this ratio bulshit, or is it just used for crunching numbers when deciding pay-outs? ?

 

[Sissy Galvez]

So the guy was day drunk, blaring offensive music, walking around with a gun all in front of a school as kids were being released? What a lovely family. I’m sure the neighborhood had a long history of problems with them.

Can’t wait to see my fb reeeeing about why you shouldn’t call the cops on black people.

 

[Lysol]

The officers arrived and knocked on the garage door. It opened, and an officer screamed that Hill had a gun. The garage door then started to go down. The officer shot through the door 4 times, hitting Hill twice in the abdomen and once in the head.
Not realizing Hill was dead, the deputies called for a SWAT team and snipers, according to the lawsuit. They kicked in doors and cut holes in the garage door, the suit claimed.
"Deputies shot tear gas canisters into the Hill home through many windows while severely damaging the windows and interior of the home and leaving toxic tear gas residue in the home," the lawsuit said.

Look, this took place in Florida. I don't blame the police for taking immediate and lethal action when the suspect brandished a firearm.