In Session: Attorneys for the City of Savannah file motion to dismiss Marquis Parrish suit
This column is part of a weekly round-up of notable grand jury indictments and court decisions, following through on cases reported by Savannah Morning News public safety reporter Drew Favakeh. If there are cases you're curious about, email Drew at AFavakeh@savannahnow.com.
Prosecutor requests to place Tyrone Glover case on dead docket
On Jan. 23, Chatham County Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Whitney Gregory filed an order requesting the Chatham County Superior Court place the State of Georgia v. Tyrone Glover on a dead docket to allow the federal government to adjudicate Glover in a separate case.
Jury trial had been scheduled for May 13, but the dead docket postpones the case indefinitely, while allowing the court to reinstate it at any time at its discretion.
Glover has been charged with committing two rapes ― one on Feb. 21, 2020, and another on July 13, 2018.
Glover's initial jury trial occurred in early April 2023 and ended in a mistrial. Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones served as the state's prosecuting attorney during that trial, but failed to show up to multiple hearings, according to local court filings.
In November of last year, the court previously granted prosecutors’ requests to dead docket the case. The new dead docket request was filed because the indictment “appeared to remain active” on the court’s docket, so there were issues releasing Glover from the Chatham County Detention Center to the U.S. Marshals Service. The new request is intended to rectify the situation.
In 2008, a federal grand jury indicted Glover, along with 44 co-defendants, for the use of a communication facility to facilitate the conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute controlled substances, including crack cocaine. In 2009, Glover was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison, and five years supervised release.
On Feb. 12 of this year, U.S. Federal District Judge Christopher Ray issued an order stating that there is probable cause to believe that Glover violated the terms and conditions of his supervised release, and therefore must appear for a revocation hearing.
More: Marquis Parrish sues former Savannah Police detective for lying on search warrants
City of Savannah files motion to dismiss Marquis Parrish civil lawsuit
On Feb. 20, attorneys for the City of Savannah and Savannah Police Department (SPD) Homicide Unit Supervisor Nicole Khaalis filed a motion to dismiss the civil lawsuit brought by Marquis Parrish, the man who was charged with murder in connection with the May 2021 death of Charles Vinson.
A Chatham County Superior Court Judge dismissed the case after former Savannah police detective Ashley Wood was discovered to have falsified information, including security footage and text messages, in multiple search warrant applications tied to the Vinson murder case.
Parrish detailed the hardships he experienced in the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District for the Southern District of Georgia, stating that the two years he was held in custody before being granted bail in April of this year forced his family into homelessness.
The original complaint alleged that the Savannah Police Department acted with “deliberate indifference” to Parrish’s constitutional rights, by;
Failing to adequately train its police officers on the importance of not altering material evidence in criminal investigations and the severe consequences that may result otherwise;
Failing to adequately train its police officers on how to receive, process and respond to requests from prosecutors for evidence, including exculpatory evidence, in criminal cases;
Failing to train its officers on the proper way to secure search warrants without the necessity of falsifying information.
Parrish and his attorney have since amended their original complaint twice, both times after the City of Savannah filed a motion to dismiss.
In their first amended complaint, Parrish and his attorney, John Manly of the Manly Shipley Law Firm, allege that Wood maliciously prosecuted Parrish, and the City of Savannah intentionally inflicted emotional stress through negligent retention and training of Wood.
Manly’s second amended complaint came on Feb. 6. This time, he added Khaalis as a defendant and claimed that Khaalis had supervisory liability and negligent training. Manley attached and cited a Savannah Morning News article of a November 2023 Civil Service Board Hearing where the City of Savannah Civil Service Board weighed whether or not they should uphold the firing of Wood. In the second amended complaint, Manly also removed State Law claims against the City of Savannah.
“Despite these amendments, Plaintiffs’ SAC still fails to state viable claims against the City of Savannah and Khaalis,” claimed the attorneys. “Accordingly, Defendants must be dismissed from this case entirely.”
In the Internal Affairs investigation, Khaalis, an 18-year veteran of SPD, was cited with OPS-002, Organization and Direction (Supervisor Responsibility) and OPS-001, Criminal Investigations (Case File Management), for failing to check whether Wood completed tasks and reviewing Wood’s case file every 10 days for accuracy. As a result of that IA investigation, Khaalis was suspended for five days without pay.
Notably, in the motion to dismiss, attorneys for Khaalis, Taylor Dove and Bradley Harmon of Hunter Maclean, did not deny that Wood was not trained as a homicide detective by SPD.
“Plaintiffs double down on their previous slipshod attempts at rehabbing their allegations, and again base their entire claim on the inadmissible hearsay statements of Mr. Schneider in a newspaper article that 'Detective Wood has never even been trained as a homicide detective.' Even if true, this alone does not satisfy the 'deliberate indifference' standard as there is no allegation that the City of Savannah knew of a need to train Detective Wood and made a deliberate choice not to train her.”
A response to the motion to dismiss is due by March 5.
Drew Favakeh is the public safety and courts reporter for Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at AFavakeh@savannahnow.com.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Chatham County GA grand jury indictments, court updates Feb. 23, 2024
