Georgia sheriff settles pastor’s fight to continue horse trough baptisms
Polk County’s sheriff and former chief jailer have settled a five-year court battle with the Rockmart evangelist they banned from offering full-immersion baptism in a horse trough to inmates at the county jail.
The settlement details are being finalized, Sheriff Johnny Moats and retired jail administrator Al Sharp told a federal judge in Rome on Friday, together with pastor Stephen Jarrard. They promised to update the court within a month or so.
Moats, Sharp and Jarrard were three weeks out from trial when they agreed to resolve the dispute, which has been litigated since January 2020. Their lawyers did not immediately comment Tuesday on the settlement.
The fight centered on whether Moats and Sharp unlawfully discriminated against Jarrard, a Church of Christ member, in barring him from participating in the volunteer ministry program at the Polk County Jail.
Jarrard, who for years has been baptizing jail detainees across North Georgia in the 8-foot-long horse trough he uses for the purpose, claimed his free speech rights were violated by the sheriff and jailer because of their different religious views.
Court records show Jarrard, a retired firefighter, believes full-immersion baptism is necessary for salvation, unlike Moats and Sharp.
Jarrard is a founding member of the Van Wert Church of Christ New Testament Fellowship and has been involved in jail ministry programs in Cobb, Paulding and Floyd counties, case records show. He first volunteered in Polk County’s program in 2012.
The sheriff, who has publicly defended his Christian values, argued Jarrard was kicked out of the program because he was upsetting other volunteer ministers and agitating inmates. Moats said in case filings that the fact he has a “different theological perspective from Jarrard” is “certainly not a basis for a federal lawsuit.”
In applying for the program, Jarrard said he had studied Scripture more than 40 years, was a certified counselor with New Life Behavior Ministry and a certified Bible teacher with American Rehabilitation Ministry.
U.S. District Judge Michael Brown ruled against Jarrard in September 2022, ending the pastor’s claims. But his decision was overturned two years later by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“They won’t tolerate discussion of things that will result in damnation,” the appeals court said of Moats and Sharp. “That, it seems to us, is viewpoint discrimination, pure and simple.”
A request by Moats and Sharp for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case was denied in May 2025.
The same month, the parties outlined their trial arguments, saying then there was little chance of settlement.
Jarrard maintained he was unlawfully excluded from the jail ministry program in retaliation for his religious beliefs, under jail policies that were unconstitutionally limiting. He said he’d performed two full-immersion baptisms at the Polk County Jail without incident before being banned in late 2016.
Moats and Sharp argued that Jarrard had upset jail inmates and staff, as well as other preachers, when he participated in the program. They said Jarrard’s teachings “stirred up inmates by making them distraught due to his claim they had to be full-immersion baptized to avoid going to Hell.”
Jarrard had also been disruptive while volunteering at other county jails, Moats and Sharp said. They denied liability.
The legal battle also previously involved a former inmate of the Polk County Jail, Ollie Morris, who sued because his request to be baptized by immersion while in custody was denied. His claims were settled in January 2023.
About the Author
Journalist Rosie Manins is a legal affairs reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
