In an image taken from video at the Jackson County Jail on April 18, 2019, Juan Anthony Sancho is forced to the ground by three sheriff's deputies.

Lawyers on both sides of the case of a former Oregon Shakespeare Festival actor’s civil lawsuit against the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office over allegations of excessive force in 2019 have objected to the findings of a U.S. magistrate judge, who recommended the case proceed to a jury trial.

Juan Anthony Sancho’s attorney Richard Thierolf, and Johan Pietila, a lawyer representing Jackson County and the sheriff’s deputies named in the lawsuit, issued filings Oct. 6 in U.S. District Court following U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke’s findings released Aug. 15.

Clarke’s findings, as well as the latest arguments from the lawyers, stem from the civil lawsuit Sancho filed in 2020 against Jackson County and the sheriff’s deputies alleging the officers violated his civil rights by using excessive force against him in the Jackson County Jail on April 18, 2019. Sancho’s lawsuit seeks up to $706,000 in damages, according to a complaint filed in May 2022 in U.S. District Court.

Sancho, 43, who has appeared on TV and on stage, had roles in the 2019 OSF productions of “Mother Road” and “La Comedia of Errors,” a bilingual adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors.”

On the night of April 18, 2019, Sancho was found intoxicated in downtown Ashland and was going to be taken into “protective custody” by Ashland police officers so they could get him to a sobriety facility, according to a 2020 memo to city officials by Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara.

But when officers determined “protective detention was not feasible,” the officers arrested Sancho for resisting arrest, O’Meara wrote. The chief added that days later he asked the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office not to file the charge because he felt “an important ongoing dialogue and relationship-building effort would be ill-served by pursuing this prosecution.”

Once he was lodged in jail, Sancho was allegedly uncooperative at intake, leading sheriff’s deputies to place him in an administrative segregation unit called a “dry cell.”

Sancho, while still in handcuffs, tried to communicate with jailers, which led them to pin him down, according to the former OSF actor’s civil complaint. He briefly lost consciousness after that encounter, his attorneys wrote.

When Sancho came to, he tried communicating with jailers again — only this time they pinned him down and handcuffed him to a metal grate, where he stayed for hours after urinating on it, according to his complaint.

The county issued a response to the complaint denying Sancho’s allegations.

Clarke, in his Aug. 15 findings, found deputies were not wrong for the way they handled Sancho during the intake process at the jail.

Clarke also did not believe deputies acted wrongfully when they initiated the “takedown” of Sancho at the jail for being uncooperative during the intake process.

But the judge did find that deputies were wrong to shackle Sancho to the grate.

Clarke’s findings, including the recommendation that the case proceed to trial, were referred to U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken. She also is reviewing the latest objections from both parties.

In his Oct. 6 filing, Pietila wrote that the county agreed with Clarke’s findings that the deputies are immune from litigation over the force used during intake and during the takedown in the dry cell.

Pietila wrote, however, that the county does not agree with Clarke’s finding that the deputies could be sued for the excessive force claim of handcuffing Sancho to the grate in the floor.

“The evidence, including video evidence, clearly shows that (Sancho) ignored directives, resisted, and disrupted jail operations,” Pietila wrote. “Thus, the force used was objectively reasonable.”

Even if Clarke found the use of force “excessive,” Pietila wrote, he does not believe clearly established case law exists to make Sancho’s argument.

Thierolf wrote in his Oct. 6 objection that he accepted all of Clarke’s recommendations except one: that the deputies should not go to trial solely on the basis of their “takedown” of Sancho in the dry cell. Clarke felt that Sancho did not clearly establish in his civil complaint why he had the right not to have excessive force used on him.

Thierolf argued that Clarke’s finding on this aspect of the lawsuit is inconsistent with his other conclusions, including that excessive force is an issue that deserves a jury trial.

“It does not make sense to apply qualified immunity to the takedown when the takedown will be an important matter at trial in any event,” Thierolf wrote.

Both attorneys in Sancho’s case also responded to Clarke’s findings that the matter should go before a jury.

Pietila, representing the county, wrote, in part, “there are no genuine issues of material fact which would allow Plaintiff to proceed to trial.”

Arguing on Sancho’s behalf, Thierolf pointed to a portion of Clarke’s findings that says a jury could reasonably say that the takedown was battery.

“Battery is unlawful, which is why trial is thus warranted concerning the takedown,” Thierolf wrote.

Thierolf wrote that jurors could find the takedown was battery or that it was a violation of Sancho’s constitutional right prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure.

Sancho’s attorneys have requested oral arguments in the case. But for now, the two sides are still working on responses to the others objections, according to Sancho’s co-counsel, Matthew Rowan.