Reynolds lawsuit set for October trial date

A wrongful-death lawsuit against two former Alleghany County Sheriff's Department employees will go forward, with a scheduled trial date next month.

The case is scheduled for trial as part of the fall session of Alleghany County Criminal Superior Court, which begins Oct. 13. The trial will likely be the main focus of the session. Court documents include a notation by Clerk of Superior Court Susie Gambill that attorneys expect the trial to last four to five days.

According to an order filed Aug. 25, Judge Russell Walker Jr. denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment in the Reynolds versus Sawyers and Dickens case. The hearing on the motion was held in mid-August, in conjunction with a session of Alleghany County Criminal Superior Court over which Walker presided.

Mark Reynolds, son of the late Jackie Dean Reynolds and administrator of his estate, is suing Michael Sawyers and D.R. Dickens over his father's death five years ago.

Jackie Reynolds, a 46-year-old Wilkes County resident, was taken to Alleghany Memorial Hospital, then to the Alleghany County Jail, following a single-vehicle crash April 19, 1998 near Sparta.

He became unconscious following an altercation with sheriff's department personnel, including Sawyers and Dickens, at the jail. Reynolds was airlifted to N.C. Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, where he remained in a coma and died June 21, 1998.

The suit accuses Sawyers and Dickens of using excessive force. They have denied those allegations.

Sawyers and Dickens' filed the motion for summary judgment in April. Had Walker granted that motion, it would have amounted to a dismissal of the lawsuit.

Defendants' Brief

Last month each side filed a brief arguing its side regarding the motion. Both sides agreed Reynolds acted erratically the night of his arrest and incarceration. At one point at the jail, he appeared to be attempting to hang himself with a pillow case. He also ripped a shower curtain rod from a shower stall and threatened officers with it.

The officers' responses included spraying Reynolds with OC (oleoresin capsicum) pepper spray. According to Sawyers' and Dickens' brief, filed by Bradley O. Wood of Winston-Salem, one of their attorneys, officers finally decided to place Reynolds in a straitjacket for transportation back to AMH. It was while they tried to do so that he became unconscious and stopped breathing.

The brief argued, "Defendants Sawyers and Dickens are entitled to summary judgment in their favor as plaintiff can produce no competent evidence to support his allegations of willful, wanton and malicious conduct or use of excessive force on the part of these defendants sufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact for trial."

The defendants' argument cited depositions and/or affidavits from Roger Bledsoe, Allan Cornett, Ricky Lyall, Franklin Hash, Janet Hampton and Roger Pruitt, along with the affidavits of Sawyers and Dickens. "All of the people who were there and saw 'the whole thing take place,' have stated, without contradiction, that defendants Sawyers and Dickens acted in good faith and without malice toward the decedent.

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