Dear Miss Josey: 

           

   As of today, I am in receipt of the certified letter which you sent to me.  I must say that I had a good chuckle when I received it.  It is yet another feeble attempt to abridge the free expression rights that I have enjoyed so long under our beautiful constitutions, both the Federal and the State.  I never cease to marvel at the ends that governmental officials will go to in attempt to limit not only my protected speech but the speech of my fellow citizens.  I know that there are very limited areas wherein speech can be limited (clear and present danger, fighting words, obscenity, and, for teachers, in matters of personal rather than public concern).  My speech, though thought often repugnant, robust, abusive, offensive, and socially unacceptable, is nevertheless for a political purpose and is protected by the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution (I will make reference to the Federal Constitution since it is the supreme law of the land).  I have always insisted that governmental officials refrain from abridging my rights to free expression (particularly since the expression of mine which always draws consternation from the likes of Superintendent Crawford Lewis and others like him is political expression and therefore more protected than commercial expression).  I remember in the 1992 campaign year, I was running for the Clayton County Board of Education (and it looked as though I was going to win, and even the incumbent superintendent was slipping me a hundred dollar bill, keeping it under the magical $101.00 mandatory disclosure limit), but I insisted that I was not going to allow the County to take down my signs everyday because I was violating an unlawful ordinance about not putting signs out until six weeks before the election.  I told that County officials that if they continued to snatch up my signs because of the time factor that I was going to take the County to Federal Court to obtain a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)..  They kept taking down my signs.  I took the matter to Federal Court, and the late Judge Robert B. Hall rhetorically asked the County’s attorney, the late Larry Foster, the following:  “Counselor, it’s a clear matter of free speech, isn’t” [or words to that effect]?  Attorney Foster replied:  “Your honor, everyone knows who John Trotter is,” and this response did not seem to sway Judge Hall who, within a few days, issued the Order, and the County struck down the ordinance.  (Ironically, I think that Eldrin is trying to revive the ordinance, and I think that DeKalb County still has a similar ordinance.   The point:  My political expression has more protection that Truth Cathy’s “Eat Mor Chikin” signs which are working seven days per week (even on Sunday) and 52 weeks per year.  I lost that election, even though the headlines in The Clayton News/Daily read in very large font type:  “Judge Rules for Trotter.”  I was also arrested during that campaign because of my free expression.  I ended up on CNN News.  The charges were dropped, but my chances for election were doomed, but I preserved my integrity and my right to engage in robust, confrontational, and sometimes offensive speech.  I love our Constitution, and I love our Country.  No where but in American can citizens freely criticize the governing officials.  I often read and re-read Miracle at Philadelphia by Catherine Drinker Bowen.  It is a great book, and I highly recommend it, especially for lawyers who, like you, are charged with representing governing bodies and their officials.  You have an ethical duty to give legal counsel which comports with the Constitution and the various laws.

   I have a feeling that this letter is going to be a few pages.  I’m just getting started (to quote Al Pacino, one of my favorite actors).  I love dialectical discussions, especially about Free Speech and Equal Protection.  I must warn you:  I am a man of many contradictions.  You will not be able to pigeonhole me.  I frustrate myself, often wondering why I can’t just be a good Democrat or a good Republican, and then I would not have people being mad at me or frustrated with me.  In national politics, I have only voted for two Democrat presidential candidates, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.  I voted for President Carter because I was a proud Southerner and met him several times during the campaign in 1976.  I voted for President Obama because my former wife called me in the wee hours on Election Day and told me that she had been in line since 5:00 AM (at the Catholic Church in Peachtree City), even getting there before the poll workers.  She voted for Barack Obama as did most all People of Color in American.  She said that my sons (young Men of Color themselves) insisted that she call me and tell me that I had better vote for Mr. Obama.  I was going to sit out the election because I never have really cared for the politics of John McCain, especially disliking his role in the McCain-Feingold Act which I believe violates Freedom of Speech (but unfortunately the majority on the Court, for now, disagrees with me and ole George Will).  My concern about Mr. Obama is his stand on abortion .  I am very much Pro-Life.  But, I said a prayer (literally) and voted the way my heart led me which was with my sons.  I voted for Barack Obama.  I thought then and I think now that it is very important that the glass ceiling be broken and that the image of our country is enhanced not only around the world but especially for young people like my four children (all of whom are of African descent).  I met Bill Clinton at the Omni in 1988, and he was so nice and warm toward me whom he had never met.  He is one of the best politicians whom I have ever met, but I voted both times for a Bush against him.  I try to be principled and vote my conscience.  I am conservative on national defense and foreign engagements, and I am also conservative on many social issues; however, on issues like race, civil rights, due process, equal protection, and free speech, I would probably be tagged to the left of George McGovern.  People tend to think that I am radical on these principles, and I guess that I am because I radically fight for them and hold onto to them.  My heroes are people like Fannie Lou Hammer, Will Campbell, John Lewis, St. Paul, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Patton, Stonewall Jackson, and, of course, my friend, the late Hosea L. Williams.  (Rev. Williams actually did some work with MACE before he died, even picketing with us.  A colleague of mine and I appeared with Rev. Williams on the Allie Pat Show.)  I wanted badly to attend Rev. Williams’s funeral services, but I felt compelled for MACE to picket at Riverdale High School on that day.  I don’t take lightly picketing for a just cause.  I have engaged in about 250 pickets during my career, and I have even had my children on the picket line as toddlers and in a stroller.  I honestly don’t understand why other people don’t resolve problems by picketing.  Redressing concerns on the picket line is very cost effective and very efficient and does not put a drain on the economy of the courts.  I have indeed had to use the courts in the past.  I have sued three school systems in Georgia, and, as you are well aware, I am bound not to disclose the settlement in any of these cases.  The litigation in each of these cases exceeded three years.  The school board attorneys enjoyed a financial windfall as did the insurance defense attorneys.  I realize that this is a game which is played out by all parties.  It is somewhat disgusting but a reality today of the legal profession.  (Michael Trotter wrote a blistering book fairly recently about the detrimental effects of hourly billing.  Michael and I talked but we’re not discernably kin to each other, though we bear the same Scottish last name.)

   I am not unfamiliar with metro Atlanta jails.  I have been a guest in a few.  The worst jail that I have ever had the pleasure to be a guest in was in Victor Hill’s jail.  I was incarcerated for 28 hours in this rather onerous jail, spending most of my time in what I presume is called “the hole.” I guess the good Sheriff (we actually have a rather pleasant relationship today) was mad at me because I kept asking where that “pissant sheriff” or “candy ass sheriff” was hiding.  (This, the Court has ruled, is not “fighting words,” especially if I am uttering them in the context of complaining about a false arrest.)  Cold air was blown on me all night in the dead of winter, and I had to walk around in circles in my solitary confinement to keep from suffering from hyporthermia.  It was probably the worst night of my life.  My lawyer, Steven Frey, had a hearing before the judge the next afternoon at around 4:30 PM.  I was given virtually no insulin, and my sugar was sky high.  I have been diabetic for 40 years and depend greatly on insulin -- sometimes up to three times daily.  What was my crime?  I simply walked into the school board meeting and, without saying a word, held up a sign in the very back of the room, a political sign to which the Chair, Ericka Davis, and the Vice Chair, Rod Johnson, must have taken exception.  Even the police officer stated that I did not say anything.  It was the power of the words on the sign.  The sign stated:  “Ericka’s brother criminally accused Clayton teacher of having sex with him.  Hmm.”  Ericka Davis’s brother had indeed filed false charges against a teacher in Clayton County.  She was a MACE member, and I secured the legal services of Attorney Lee Sexton to defend her in Magistrate Court.  Dismissed.  Then the school systems sent the false complaint to the old Professional Practices Commission (PPC).  Terence Thomas represented her in this matter before the PPC.  The PPC exonerated her.  For some strange reason the District Attorney’s Office kept pushing the matter.  At the time, Ericka Davis was political unknown and working at the local DFACS Office.  The teacher was charged with a very serious crime which, if found guilty, would not have only stripped her of her teaching certificate, but would have also probably sent her to prison.  In a three-day trial in the Clayton County Superior Court, Lee Sexton again represented the teacher.  This trial was nationally-covered by the media, with Inside Edition spending a great deal of time in Clayton County.  The teacher was found “Not Guilty.”  I turned down national talk shows in New York (all expenses paid, mind you), including the Montel Williams Show.   Nearly ten years later when I found out that School Board Chair Ericka Davis decided (which she could not do without full board approval), allegedly along with the superintendent, to send out upward to 50,000 telephone messages to parents of children in the Clayton County Schools concerning the previous Monday night’s school board meeting when my colleague and school board member Norreese Haynes pointedly began to ask question about then now infamous “Land Deal” (covered very extensively by the media) which wasted over eight million dollars of the Clayton taxpayers’ money and the contract was not even signed by the superintendent.  (Mr. Haynes was, within a few months, vindicated by the Report from the Clayton County Grand Jury.)  What Ericka Davis did was unethical and uncalled for.  Therefore, to make a political statement, I went to that school board meeting with the previously-mentioned sign.  The sign was repugnant, offensive, noxious, robust, and fully protected by the Free Speech provisions of the U. S. Constitution.  I told my colleagues at the MACE Office that there was a good chance that I would be arrested.  I was.  I have found that governmental officials are not fond of the First Amendment. (I even had a police officer confess to me that arresting me for using “candy ass” in reference to another superintendent, not Crawford Lewis in this case, would have been simply “a temporary solution.”  The police officers apparently were concerned about our video camera and my promise that I would put them on You Tube.)  The charges in Clayton County were summarily dropped within a few days.  I did not sue.  I live in Clayton County, and, at the time, I did not want to go through another protracted lawsuit.  This time, however, I will not be so kind.  I am putting you, as the lawyer/agent of the DeKalb County Board of Education and Superintendent Crawford Lewis, on notice that if you or your clients engage in any adverse action(s) against me for exercising my rights under the U. S. Constitution that you will be engaging in this illicit action under the color of law.  Now, let us turn our attention to the patent lies and misrepresentations in the certified letter which I received from you today.  I will answer each paragraph and hopefully enlighten you about the events leading up to your letter.  I will also elucidate upon concepts and cases within the provisions of Free Expression and Equal Protection as provided for all Americans.

  Let me begin with your opening paragraph.  I have not engaged in any “criminal activity while on the premises of the School District” despite your baseless and libelous statement to the contrary.  I certainly would not be “subject to prosecution by the District Attorney’s Office” unless my activities were the subject of a felony.  I don’t think that DeKalb has yet deteriorated to the point that it will prosecute an innocent picketer in a Category One Free Speech Forum for a felony, but, then again, this is the county where the former sheriff was convicted for conspiracy in the murder of the Sheriff-elect.  Perhaps anything could now happen in DeKalb County.  And, imagine that some people think that my home county of Clayco is wild!  We haven’t yet begun killing candidates-elect.  But, perhaps Gwen is a personal friend of yours, and you might feel more comfortable having her to prosecute me for engaging in an activity which is enshrined in our nation’s history and held inviolate by our Justices, be they Republican or Democratic appointees.  Remember that President Eisenhower appointed California governor Earl Warren to the Bench.  Earl Warren was a Republican governor.  For some reason, the Justices, despite who appointed them, uphold the right of the citizenry to publicly criticize governmental officials.  In fact,  Justice Hugo Black, a former Ku Klux Klan member of Alabama, in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) wrote:  “The press [the MACE pickets] was to serve the governed, not the governors [the likes of Crawford Lewis].  The Government’s [DeKalb County School System’s] power to censor the press [the MACE pickets] was abolished so that the press [the MACE pickets] would remain forever free to censor the Government [the DeKalb County School System]…” (insertions mine).  Your statements, Miss Josey, in the opening paragraph were specious, scurrilous, scandalous, and libelous.  Your position as the General Counsel for the DeKalb County Board of Education does not exonerate you or your firm from libel.  Govern yourself accordingly.