Four court cases delayed as Columbus suspect in racial assaults goes to hospital

The remaining court cases involving a Columbus man convicted of stabbing a white store worker in a racially motivated assault are on hold after he was taken to the hospital Wednesday with reported chest pains

Before his medical emergency, Jayvon Rayshawn Hatchett was to plead guilty to strangling a white cellmate in another attack allegedly related to racial animus, and in three other unrelated felony cases.

The jail homicide led to a federal lawsuit against workers at the county jail, and that also still is pending.

Additional delays may follow, because Hatchett’s public defender, Steve Craft, is set to retire in three months, so Hatchett may have to find a new attorney to handle his remaining criminal cases.

What happened?

Around 10 a.m. , Wednesday, Superior Court Judge John Martin was prepared to accept Hatchett’s guilty pleas at the Columbus Government Center when a deputy said, “There’s an issue downstairs with Mr. Hatchett.”

Craft went to investigate, and reported that Hatchett had told deputies he had chest pains and couldn’t breathe, so he was handcuffed and sent away in an ambulance. Martin later said Hatchett’s criminal cases would be rescheduled.

Outside the courtroom, District Attorney Stacey Jackson told reporters he would try to set a trial date for Hatchett in June, the same month Craft is to retire.

“If something changes, as far as his willingness to accept responsibility, that may change the time frame, but as of right now, there will be no plea today, and it will be set on a future trial docket,” he said.

He acknowledged that if Craft retires, a new defense attorney will have to be appointed, causing further delay: “That’s a possibility, unfortunately.”

Meanwhile, one defendant in the federal lawsuit over the jail homicide is appealing to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and two others are facing a civil trial in federal court.

Here’s a rundown of Hatchett’s court cases:

Hatchett, then 19 years old, was jailed Aug. 26, 2020, a day after after he walked into a Columbus Auto Zone store and stabbed worker Michael Hunt seven times, so severely injuring Hunt that Hunt now has to use a wheelchair. Hatchett, who is Black, told police he was so angered by videos of police violence against Blacks that he attacked the first white man he saw.

A jury last week convicted Hatchett of aggravated assault and using a knife to commit a felony, in that case, and Judge Martin sentenced him to 25 years in prison.

While jailed in the assault on Hunt, Hatchett on Sept. 5, 2020, was charged with murder and aggravated assault in the death of 39-year-old Eddie Nelson Jr. He’s accused of strangling Nelson around 1:30 a.m., when a corrections officer saw Hatchett kneeling on Nelson with his hands around Nelson’s neck.

The other cases

Besides Nelson’s homicide, Hatchett faces charges in three other cases:

• On Feb. 24, 2019, he was accused of trying to cut the locks on a roll-down door to get into A Better Pawn, 4400 Second Ave. Police charged him criminal attempt burglary, second degree.

• On Nov. 30, 2019, he was accused of using a knife to try to slash his girlfriend in the abdomen at the home they shared, and a minor child witnessed the dispute. Police charged him with aggravated assault and third-degree cruelty to children.

• On July 26, 2020, he was accused of causing more than $500 damage to his girlfriend’s car windshield, and the next day allegedly refused to leave her 30th Street home after she told him to. Police charged him with second-degree criminal damage to property and criminal trespass.

Those three cases plus the jail assault and murder charges were to be resolved with guilty pleas Wednesday, before Hatchett reported he was ill.

In the federal lawsuit, Nelson’s family claims workers at the Muscogee County Jail were negligent in allowing Hatchett to be housed with white inmates when they knew he had told police he targeted Hunt because of race.

The suit claims the jail staff were “deliberately indifferent” to the risk Hatchett posed, in violation of Nelson’s rights under the 14th Amendment.

Nelson’s family filed their first claim in September 2020, and in November 2021 amended the lawsuit to target only the jail workers who dealt directly with Hatchett.

Represented by attorney Craig Jones of Washington, Georgia, the plaintiffs are Jerry Nelson, Eddie Nelson’s brother and estate administrator, and Nelson’s widow Michele DuShane.

The remaining defendants are a former corrections officer, Keyvon Sellers; a jail nurse, Kimberly Braxton; and her employer, jail healthcare vendor CorrectHealth Muscogee.

The federal appeal

On Dec. 5, 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land decided a jury could find that Sellers and Braxton should have realized the danger Hatchett posed to white cellmates, because of Hatchett’s “irrational response to the racially charged atmosphere connected to the widespread publicity of whites killing blacks.”

Sellers, who has claimed he has “qualified immunity” from the Nelson family’s suit, is the defendant who appealed Land’s decision to the 11th Circuit. Qualified immunity means public employees performing their routine duties are free from such claims unless they violate someone’s clearly established constitutional rights.

Sellers is represented by the Columbus law firm Page, Scrantom, Sprouse, Tucker and Ford. Both sides have filed their briefs in the appeal, and await the 11th Circuit’s decision.

Jones, the Nelson family’s attorney, said Wednesday that he believes a civil trial against the other two defendants may be scheduled for early next year.