Yancey drama: State claims possibly next
KNOXVILLE — A ruling by a federal jury that awarded the widow of slain Scott County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Hubert D. “John John” Yancey likely was not the end of an ongoing legal drama at both the civil and criminal levels.
The next step appears to be the filing of claims in circuit court at the state level. After the jury’s favorable verdict on the federal claims — which dealt only with alleged civil rights violations — it had been speculated that a return to the state level was likely. Attorneys for the Yancey family had not directly addressed the possibility.
However, filings in federal court last week seemed to suggest that the filing of civil charges at the lower level could be imminent.
In a three-page written motion filed in U.S. District Court just before the court’s Thanksgiving recess, David S. Wigler, an attorney with the law office of Herbert S. Moncier, which represents Lori Yancey, requested the court to issue a written order officially remanding all state claims from the original $10 million wrongful death lawsuit back to state court.
Yancey’s lawsuit was originally filed at both the state and federal level, in November 2004. Prior to the start of the trial earlier this month, Judge Thomas Varlan issued an order in which only certain claims — including some state claims — were to be presented to the jury. As the trial began, however, the court remanded all state law claims back to state court, leaving only the claims made under the federal 1983 Civil Rights Act to be submitted to the jury.
In his filing Wednesday, Wigler said that his client’s “state law claims were never remanded by written order of this court,” and recommended that all state claims — including claims of wrongful death, consortium and outrageous conduct — be remanded for the sake of clarity.
In a separate filing Wednesday, Wigler requested that the court file a copy of Judge Varlan’s final charge to the jury shortly before the jury retired for deliberation in the federal trial.
“As the court is aware, potential issues of res judicata and issue preclusion are anticipated to be raised in further litigation in state court,” Wigler wrote.
Sgt. Yancey was fatally shot by his partner, former Chief Deputy Marty Carson, during the investigation of a methamphetamine lab on Williams Creek Road just outside Oneida on November 28, 2003. One year later, Lori Yancey filed a wrongful death suit in state and federal court, alleging that Carson murdered her husband.
At the federal trial earlier this month, the plaintiffs argued a two-part theory of motive: That Carson murdered Yancey to prevent Yancey from running for sheriff in the 2006 election, as well as to stop Yancey’s quiet probe of alleged drug activity by Carson.
Carson denied all the charges made against him, maintaining that the shooting was an accident.
The shooting was initially determined an accident by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the District Attorney General’s office determined that no charges should be filed. Part of the drug allegations made at this month’s civil trial — allegations by two escaped jail inmates in 2001 that they were providing Carson with methamphetamine — were reportedly also investigated by the TBI and determined to be invalid.
However, District Attorney Wm. Paul Phillips announced following the jury’s favorable verdict for the plaintiffs that an investigation had been re-opened by the TBI as a result of allegations made at the civil trial, and that criminal charges would be filed if warranted.
Moncier requested on behalf of the plaintiffs that Judge Varlan recommend the case to a federal grand jury; the court has not yet ruled on that motion.