(CN) — The publisher of a small weekly newspaper in rural Alabama joined three other plaintiffs Wednesday in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the district attorney and sheriff of Escambia County Alabama for a series of searches, seizures and arrests in 2023.
The plaintiffs claim the actions were unwarranted and politically motivated retaliation for the plaintiffs’ opposition of an incumbent school superintendent. The defendants waged a four-month campaign against the plaintiffs, charging them with revealing grand jury secrets, before eventually recusing themselves. Then, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office adopted the case and dropped all charges.
But by then, “the damage was already done,” the plaintiffs claim in a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Alabama, also naming several individual deputies as defendants. “Criticism isn’t criminal. Our Constitution ensures that government officials can’t use their authority to punish people who disagree with them about who should hold local office,” their lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Institute for Justice.
Atmore News Publisher Sherry Digmon also served on the Escambia County School board, where, amid a questionable state financial audit, she and another member blocked the early renewal of the superintendent’s employment contract. But the superintendent had political allies in District Attorney Stephen Billy and Sheriff Heath Jackson, who “openly threatened to retaliate against anyone who stood between them and four more years of [the superintendent],” the plaintiffs claim.
In response to their opposition, Billy and Jackson issued and served an unlawful subpoena for school board payroll records and after the Atmore News published a story about it, ordered deputies to seize the phones and electronic devices of Digmon, the other school board member, a payroll specialist for the school district and news reporter Don Fletcher, who wrote the story.
For obtaining or distributing a copy of the subpoena, all four were also arrested and charged with revealing grand jury secrets, although the subpoena itself had never been reviewed or authorized by a grand jury.
Digmon was arrested a second time and charged with additional ethics violations regarding her role as school board member, while Billy also led a campaign to have her impeached. Digmon was arrested and booked a third time allegedly as part of an unnecessary process to reprocess a prior arrest on a lower bond amount.
The plaintiffs claim the actions are violations of their First and Fourth Amendment rights protecting free speech and against unlawful searches and seizures.
In a statement announcing the lawsuit Wednesday, Digmon emphasized the plaintiffs had been engaged in common, constitutionally protected speech.
“Don and I were doing our job as community newspaper reporters,” she said. “I was upholding my oath as a school board member. Certainly nothing was unlawful about either act. However, when someone with a little power disagreed with us, they had us arrested. I look forward to justice being served in hopes we can keep something like this from happening to someone else.”
Similarly, Institute for Justice attorney Jared McClain said, “Americans must be able to participate in their government without fear that they’ll be labeled as political enemies, investigated, and punished for exposing corruption. [The plaintiffs] were just doing their jobs and what they knew was right. But because that got in the way of what the district attorney and sheriff wanted, they ended up in jail. We need the courts to hold government officials accountable when they abuse their power.”
Billy has not commented on the case since his recusal, which he attributed to undefined personal and professional conflicts. After 20 years as district attorney, he announced his intent to retire last month.
