Shades of the Past: Prominent Alabama attorneys question state
commission's decision to relocate a judicial seat nearly won by
Black woman

[link removed]

Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here

[link removed]

Friend,

As the Alabama Supreme Court considers hearing arguments on whether
the transfer of a judgeship earlier this year from a large,
majority-Black county to a smaller, less diverse one violates the
state's constitution, prominent members of the Magic City Bar
Association
[link removed]

are raising questions about the reallocation of the circuit court
seat.

At issue is the vote by a commission created by Alabama's
Republican-dominated Legislature to permanently relocate the seat

[link removed]

from Jefferson County, the most populous and diverse in the state, to
majority-white Madison County. The vote, divided along racial lines,
effectively dissolved the seat that Tiara Hudson, a veteran public
defender, had been nominated to fill after a decisive win in a primary
election.

The transfer means the state's largest metropolitan area, where
criminal cases are numerous and complex, has one fewer circuit court
judge to hear such cases. It means the bench will not include Hudson,
who would have been the first Black woman with a background as a
public defender to serve on the bench anywhere in Alabama and the
first public defender to serve as a circuit judge in Jefferson County.
And it means that despite winning 54% of the primary vote, Hudson is
left fighting in the courts for the position she was on track to win
at the ballot box.

"What happened here is problematic," said Ralph Cook, a
retired associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and a former
law school dean who in 1976 became the first Black person to be
elected to a district judgeship in the state. "The judgeship
should not have been transferred."

Cook and others who are openly expressing their concerns about the
transfer underline that their questions are rooted in analysis of the
state constitution. No evidence has emerged that the decision to
transfer the seat was racially motivated, and the chairman of the
Judicial Resources Allocation Commission (JRAC) called the move a
simple matter of filling a need in Madison County. Still, the dispute
is opening the wounds of Alabama's deeply troubled past, as
questions swirl over whether the new commission is being deployed to
deny diverse communities fair representation in the judiciary.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union
of Alabama are representing Hudson

[link removed]

in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the transfer. In
August, they appealed the case

[link removed]

to the state Supreme Court after a circuit judge dismissed it.

The plaintiffs argue that the state constitution gives only the
Legislature - not a commission created by it, unelected and
unaccountable to voters - the authority to reallocate
judgeships. The white members of the commission have made multiple
attempts to transfer judgeships from Jefferson County to Madison
County, but have been unsuccessful until now, according to the
original complaint.

'Red flag'

Ahmed Soussi, a voting rights staff attorney with the SPLC, called the
delegation to the commission of the power to shift the seat from one
county to another "a red flag for voting rights and specifically
for the people to elect their local judges and other
officeholders."

The timing of the transfer, Soussi said, is especially problematic,
coming as it did on the heels of an election in which the voters of
Jefferson County cast ballots overwhelmingly for Hudson.

"The reason our system works is we vote people in to make
decisions," Soussi said. "When you give power to people
not voted in by the electorate, like this commission, this is when you
start having judgeships moved from a diverse county to a
majority-white county."

READ MORE

[link removed]

In solidarity,

Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.

Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?

DONATE

[link removed]



--
Unsubscribe [link removed] | Privacy Policy [link removed] | Contact Us [link removed]

Southern Poverty Law Center
400 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36104
334.956.8200 // splcenter.org
[link removed]
Copyright 2022