More than a year after a jury found him guilty of second degree murder, former D.C. police officer Terence Sutton remains free and at home.

His attorney argues he’s innocent of the charges and has asked the judge to grant him a new trial. But both prosecutors and the mother of the man Sutton killed argue it’s unjust — and unusual – for a man found guilty of murder to remain out of jail for this long after a trial.

In December of 2022, after a lengthy and contentious trial, a jury found Sutton and his lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky guilty of a series of charges related to the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown.

Hylton-Brown died in the fall of 2020 after being hit by oncoming traffic after Sutton chased him in his Metropolitan Police Department cruiser. Prosecutors argued that Sutton was responsible for Hylton-Brown’s death because of the way he recklessly chased him through the streets and alleys of Northwest D.C. that night – and a jury ultimately agreed.

With the jury’s verdict, Sutton became the first D.C. police officer in memory found guilty of an on-duty murder. He and Zabavsky were also found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice for trying to cover up the circumstances surrounding Hylton-Brown’s death.

But Sutton and his former lieutenant have not been sentenced or held in jail. Instead, the judge has allowed them both to remain at home as he works through a slew of post-trial motions that seek to throw out the jury’s verdict and start a new trial.

Lawyers for the defense maintain their clients’ innocence and argue that their clients shouldn’t be sentenced until the remaining legal matters have been resolved. Prosecutors, on the other hand, have argued that sentencing shouldn’t be further delayed because it’s typical for defendants to be sentenced before a judge is finished ruling on post-trial motions.

Hylton-Brown’s mother, Karen Hylton, has also weighed in through her lawyer, arguing the delay is unjust. Hylton was herself arrested for her reaction in the courtroom following the verdict and temporarily held in jail; a jury has since found her not guilty of the charges.

“So far, Hylton has spent more time in jail for supposed misbehavior during Sutton’s verdict than Sutton has for murdering her son,” her lawyer, Charlie Gerstein, wrote in a memo to U.S. District Court judge Paul Friedman, urging him to set a sentencing date. “The injustice of this observation is both self-evident and, perhaps, unprecedented: counsel is unfamiliar with another case in which a convicted murderer has been permitted to stay out of jail for so long following conviction.”

“I don’t know how to describe [the situation] other than outrageous,” Gerstein told DCist/WAMU in an interview.

The defense’s arguments against the conviction – and in favor of a whole new trial – are numerous. Counsel for Sutton has argued that prosecutors should not have brought the murder charge against him in the first place; they say that instead of being held to the standard of a civilian, Sutton should have been able to defend himself by arguing that he was acting appropriately as an on-duty police officer. The officers also argued that prosecutors had no basis to bring federal conspiracy and obstruction charges against them, because they didn’t properly prove the basis for those charges.

The defense also claims the trial was unfair in a litany of other ways. They’ve argued, for example, that they were unfairly denied the opportunity to tell the jury about Hylton-Brown’s criminal record and alleged associations with the “KDY” crew. And they’ve also argued that the judge’s demeanor towards Sutton’s defense attorney during the trial was unfair; he repeatedly got frustrated during the proceedings. (In filings, Sutton’s attorney, Michael Hannon, brought up one particularly tense bench conference, which juries are not supposed to be able to hear. He argued that the witness on the stand “could hear the court’s profanity at Mr. Hannon, as did persons in the gallery. In addition, when the Court discharged the jury, the Court threw its face mask across the front of the bench while the jury was still in the jury box.”)

In December, the judge rejected one of those motions: the defendants’ request to reverse the jury’s verdict. But the judge has yet to decide on the remaining motions, which ask for a new trial. And Friedman has, despite the government’s objections, decided that it’s necessary to delay sentencing until he can fully and carefully consider all of the matters in front of him.

“The Court concludes that the breadth and seriousness of the issues presented” in the post-trial motions “both necessitate a delay in sentencing and provide good cause for vacating the current sentencing schedule,” Friedman wrote in a Dec. 1 opinion.

Sutton’s attorney did not respond to an interview request, but Zabavsky’s attorney, Christopher Zampogna, told DCist/WAMU he also had never experienced a case with such a lengthy delay between a guilty verdict and sentencing.

Zampogna said he believes the delays might stem from the length of the trial (it lasted eight weeks, not including jury selection), the volume of litigation, and the fact that the case is so unique. Not only was the combination of the local murder charge and federal obstruction and conspiracy charges unusual – but also, he added, he is not aware of another murder case “where there’s never been physical contact in a chase.”

Gerstein, Hylton’s attorney, said the sentencing delays are affecting the civil case Hylton has filed against the former officers.

“Once Sutton’s conviction is final, we will move in the civil case for something called summary judgment, effectively saying that we win on liability because if you are a convicted murderer, you are at least in violation of District of Columbia civil law,” Gerstein explained. “And so the delay in finalization of Sutton’s conviction is delaying the civil case.”

Prosecutors have made their frustration clear, too. In a memo submitted to Friedman in November, prosecutors argued that the defense had “repeatedly tried to stall the sentencing hearing” — and it was time to move things along.

“The victim’s family and the public, who will have waited for more than a year after the verdict for sentencing, deserve final resolution to this devastating matter without any further delay,” wrote U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves.

This story was corrected to reflect that Sutton and Zabavsky were found guilty in December 2022, not December 2023.