BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week

POTSDAM — The attorney for Oral “Nick” Hillary, who lost his lawsuit against the village of Potsdam and several of its police officers last month for unlawful imprisonment, has filed an appeal of that decision.

Hillary’s attorney, Brett H. Klein of New York, NY, filed the appeal July 8 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Hillary was investigated and arrested for the 2011 murder of 12-year-old Garrett Phillips in the boy’s Potsdam apartment. Hillary, a former romantic partner of Phillip’s mother, was tried for the boy’s murder and ultimately acquitted of the charges after a three-week bench trial in the fall of 2016.

Hillary filed two civil suits in U.S. District Court of the Northern District in Albany over how the investigation was handled. One of those, filed in 2012, claimed that his detention by investigators during the active case was unlawful. The other lawsuit filed by Hillary in 2017, citing different claims, was dismissed by the court, but attorneys for Hillary have filed an appeal on that dismissal.

The 2012 lawsuit named the village, current Police Chief Mark Murray, and former chief Edward Tischler as defendants.

After years of court procedures, the suit finally went to a civil trial on June 6, 2022.

The jury sided with the municipality and its officers in the lawsuit on June 10, after entering deliberations the day before.

According to the court “the jury found that plaintiff (Hillary) did not prove his unlawful detention claim by a preponderance of the evidence.”

The appeal filed by Klein on July 8 states that Hillary appeals “each and every part of the Judgement in favor of defendants against plaintiff.”

The appeals process is typically lengthy, lasting weeks or even months, with multiple procedural steps often required. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals will either reaffirm the original jury decision, reverse the decision back to trial court where a new trial may be ordered, or remand the case to the trial court.

Hillary’s case and the Phillips’ murder has garnered widespread media attention over the years on the national level with multiple news stories and even an HBO documentary “Who Killed Garrett Phillips?” being produced. The documentary raised the issue of race being a factor in how Hillary, who is black, was treated during the investigation.

To date the murder remains unsolved.