Ricky Brannon (left) is shown in this file photo during an April 2006 court appearance in Cherokee County. The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office on Monday argued a state inmate's civil lawsuit against its investigators should not have to go to trial.

State Department of Corrections inmate Ricky Brannon sued the sheriff's office last year seeking more than $820,000 in damages for what he claims was an improper seizure of a vial of his blood by investigators. He also seeks $15 a day from each investigator involved in his case for every day his vial of blood remains in police possession and control.

Without responding to Brannon's claims, an attorney for the sheriff's office simply responded that Brannon's lawsuit should be tossed since it was filed too late.

Attorney Todd Darwin of Spartanburg, who represents the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office and the investigators named in Brannon's lawsuit, argued before Circuit Court Judge Derham Cole on Monday that Brannon's lawsuit was filed either two and a half years after a two-year statute of limitations had expired, or two months after the statute of limitations had expired, depending on various legal arguments about when the two-year statute of limitations would start.

Either way, Darwin argued, Brannon's lawsuit still was filed too late to be considered in court.

Shackled and guarded by Department of Corrections officers, Brannon responded in court it was his belief his claims were not subject to a two-year statute of limitations, but to a six-year statute of limitations, and should be allowed to proceed.

Judge Cole said he would consider the arguments and make a ruling at a later date.

Brannon was convicted of burglary in April 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment under the state's "three strikes" law due to numerous prior convictions. He was originally supposed to face trial on the burglary charge in 2004 but the trial was delayed by an arson fire at the Cherokee County Courthouse. Brannon later was charged with the courthouse fire but has not been tried for it due to the life sentence in the burglary case.

Monday's hearing was held in the same courtroom that had sustained fire, smoke and water damage in 2004.

In his handwritten lawsuit, Brannon claimed Cherokee County Sheriff's Office investigators unlawfully obtained a search warrant to obtain a vial of his blood. He further claimed the search warrant and the seizure of his blood were unlawful since the search warrant said the blood was needed for comparison with hair samples found at the scene of a Cherokee County burglary, but was used instead in an effort to link him to a burglary and assault that occurred outside Cherokee County.