SPOKANE, Wash – After just a few hours of deliberation, a Spokane County jury found a former Spokane County Sheriff’s sergeant not guilty of assaulting a man he was trying to arrest.
The jury delivered its verdict Wednesday morning. He was also found not guilty of making a false statement.
Clay Hilton was charged with second degree assault for an encounter with Kevin Hinton, in a Spokane Valley park in 2023. Hilton was telling Hinton he didn’t have the right to be in the park after a certain time.
Hilton hit Hinton repeatedly during the incident, breaking several of Hinton’s ribs.
Hinton was never charged with a crime or cited for being in the park.
Hilton, a 13-year veteran of the department, was fired for using excessive force but said in court, he was acting within the guidelines of what he’d been taught about reasonable force.
After the announcement of the verdict, Hilton’s attorney, Bryan Hershman, said the decision was fair.
“My client’s been found not guilty — as he should have been. This is justice at its highest form,” Hershman said.
Hershman argued throughout the trial that Hilton’s use of force was lawful because the tactics were taught to him by the Basic Law Enforcement Academy handbook.
“My client did exactly what he was trained to do. He did exactly what was within the bounds of the law,” Hershman said. “The complaining witness in this case resisted, put my client’s welfare in jeopardy, and he reacted appropriately.”
Prosecutors had argued the opposite in this trial — that Hilton’s use of force was unlawful and that Hinton was not resisting during the arrest. For seven days, this case reviewed body camera footage from the incident many times.
Hinton was not charged in connection with the encounter.
While Hilton was found not guilty on the state charges today, he still faces federal charges from that night.
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