After a judge said lawyers couldn’t ask for a suspended FBI agent to come to court, a prosecutor asked for that same agent to come to court.
On May 8, during a pretrial hearing for eight pending cases in Catoosa County Superior Court, Judge Grant Brantley told the local court clerk not to issue any subpoenas for Special Agent Ken Hillman. The lead investigator on those eight cases, Hillman has been under a federal probe himself for two years amid allegations that he lied on police reports and to grand juries about how he conducted the investigations.
Two of the cases are supposed to go to trial in two months.
On May 11, three days after the ruling from Brantley, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert “Buzz” Franklin asked for a subpoena anyway.
Clerk Tracy Brown initially issued the subpoena for Hillman, but then she asked Catoosa County Attorney Clifton “Skip” Patty for advice. After exchanging emails with the federal prosecutor leading the Hillman investigation, Patty told Brown to take back the court summons.