FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A St. Lucie County family is back in court trying to reverse a $4 jury verdict in a deputy-involved shooting.
Greg Hill was shot and killed through his own garage in 2014.
Jury selection in the federal case took up most of the day as a new trial begins four years after a prior federal jury awarded $4 to Hill's family.
"[It is a] slap in the face. How can you value someone's life off $4?" Terrica Monique Graham, Hill's fiancée said in 2018.
In 2014, a complaint over loud music brought deputies to a home on Avenue Q in Fort Pierce, which is across the street from an elementary school.
Hill, 30, was shot in the head and stomach after a deputy said he saw a gun.
Court records show deputies found a gun in Hill's back pocket after shooting him through the garage door.
"The door completely separated him from the police officers," attorney John Phillips said in 2014. "He was in the curtails of his own home, fully."
Hill was intoxicated at the time. The jury in 2018 ruled he was 99% responsible for his death.
Sheriff Ken Mascara was ruled to be 1% responsible, so the $4 verdict became 4 cents.
There were protests outside the courthouse after that verdict four years ago. Hill's fiancé led the march.
"[I] don't believe he tended to be a threat to any of those officers because this is a guy getting married in two months," Monique Graham said in 2018. "This is a guy who knows his daughter is across the street at school."
The deputy who shot Hill left the sheriff's office in 2019.
The trial is expected to last about a week.
