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Eight incidents level 60 charges of ethical wrongdoing against Circuit Judge DuBose Circuit Judge Stuart DuBose has been charged with 60 counts of violations of the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics in a complaint filed Thursday, Jan. 31 by the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission with the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, a special judicial panel that hears complaints against judges. The formal 113-page complaint, similar to an indictment issued by a grand jury, means that DuBose is suspended from the bench with pay pending a decision by the court as to his guilt or innocence. He has 30 days to respond to the allegations before the case goes to the Court of the Judiciary which could remove him from office or otherwise reprimand him. The complaint cites eight specific instances of ignoring judicial orders and authority, personal use of court materials and personnel and harassment and intimidation of employees and lawyers and other inappropriate action and activities. DuBose denied the allegations at a recent hearing in Montgomery where he testified but the commission ruled that his denials were contrary to the evidence that had been presented. The complaint records extreme profanity and obscenities allegedly attributed to Judge DuBose. The Democrat has censored the worst words from the transcript and indicated them with "expletive deleted" notations. Sullivan estate wrongdoings Count One involves events surrounding the circumstances of DuBose preparing a will for a Washington County man, Joseph L. Sullivan, when he was in private practice at the request of a caregiver, Cheryl Weaver, who was DuBose's client that left the estate to the caregiver. DuBose never met with the man to make sure that the bequest was his wish. He represented both the estate and the heir/client without informing her of the potential conflict of interest, the complaint states. Later, Weaver sued DuBose in a malpractice suit over his fee and control of the estate but prior to trial DuBose agreed to a confidential settlement of nearly $1.2 million in cash plus three parcels of property. This was in October 2006, after DuBose had won the Democratic nomination for circuit judge. The settlement was not made as agreed to and the judge in the matter, John Lockett of Mobile, held a hearing on Weaver's request that the settlement be enforced. This was in August 2007 and DuBose had been a circuit judge since January. The day after the settlement hearing, DuBose filed transactions to divide property and other assets between himself and Weaver contrary to the settlement agreement and without Judge Lockett's permission. That prompted Lockett to issue a judgment in favor of Weaver based on the settlement agreement. DuBose then sent Lockett copies of letters he had sent his attorney that were highly critical of Lockett's order, saying it was illegal and immoral and must not become public knowledge or be recorded, that doing so would ruin DuBose professionally and financially. The letters were written on First Judicial Circuit stationery and he signed them as a judge of the circuit. Lockett made the letters a part of the court record as an inappropriate ex parte communication from DuBose and prohibited him from such further contact with the court. The complaint states that DuBose has still not complied with Lockett's order. In a motion filed in September he declined to obey the order saying it required him to perform an illegal act. The Sullivan case events resulted in seven violations of the canons of judicial ethics, the complaint states. Confrontation with court reporter over Alabama Power transcript Count Two details events surrounding a private dispute between DuBose and Alabama Power over an easement access to power lines that cross Clarke County property owned by DuBose. DuBose did not want to grant access. Clarke County Probate Judge Becky Presnall recused herself from hearing the matter and Covington County Probate Judge Sherrie Phillips was appointed. In motions, DuBose described himself as a circuit judge and said that he did not have time to attend a hearing on the motion anytime in 2007 or 2008 because of his judicial duties. He belittled the law firm representing Alabama Power and said the case was "frivolous, vexatious, without merit, hateful, mean-spirited" and contrary to state rules and laws. A hearing was set and DuBose contacted his official court reporter, Chrissy M. Dunn, and told her he wanted her to record the hearing and transcribe it for him. "He further instructed her to give him a bill for her time, marked or stamped 'paid in full.' With any other client, she would have been paid," the complaint states. DuBose, in testimony to the commission, said he did tell Dunn to prepare a bill but he denied that he told her to mark it paid in full. He said she said she did not want to be paid for the work he was requesting. The commission said DuBose's assertions are "misrepresentations of fact." Such matters in probate court are not usually recorded but when Dunn arrived with DuBose at the Dec. 13 hearing, attorney James A. Byram Jr., representing Alabama Power, asked her if she was DuBose's official court reporter. "Before Ms. Dunn could respond, Judge DuBose answered that she was not," the complaint states. Byram initially objected to the proceeding before recorded but then asked for a copy of the transcript. DuBose objected but then told him he could have a copy if he paid half of the cost. Byram refused. DuBose stated that he was paying his court reporter "out of his pocket," the complaint states. Judge Phillips agreed for Dunn to record the proceedings but to provide Byram and the court with copies. At the conclusion of the hearing, Byram gave Dunn a business card so she could sent him a copy of the transcript. When she returned to DuBose's office, he asked her what she was holding and when she told him it was Byram's business card, DuBose responded, "That stupid [expletive deleted] is not getting a copy of this transcript. Those [expletive deleted] are not getting a copy," the complaint relates. "He snatched Mr. Byram's card from her and threw it in the trash can." The complaint continues. She returned to her office and he followed her and told her, "I mean it, those [expletive deleted] are not to get a copy of the transcript. You go and you transcribe this thing for me, and you get it to me, and you give me all your stuff." She agreed and DuBose left but returned a few seconds later, the complaint reads. "Sweating and red in the face, he leaned across Ms. Dunn's desk, pointing his finger in her face, and said, 'Would you [expletive deleted] with me. Would you [expletive deleted] with me?'" DuBose denied the events as described but the commission stated his denials were "misrepresentations of fact." The complaint specifies the professional rules that govern court reporters- that they must be fair and impartial to all participants in a proceeding and that they must retain and protect their notes and records. After the above events occurred, Dunn informed District Attorney Spencer Walker of the details. Later that day, DuBose called Dunn at home and told her he had checked the legal requirements and she could turn the materials over to him. She disagreed but he persisted. The next day he again called her and basically restated his request. When she again demurred, he insisted, "Just do what I'm telling you to do," the complaint relates. Dunn again went to DA Walker who took her to see Thomas Baxter, the presiding circuit judge. While waiting to see Baxter, DuBose again called her on her cellular phone to bring him the materials. She put the conversation on speaker phone so that Walker could hear it. "Subsequently, Judge Baxter, District Attorney Walker and Mr. [Ronnie] Keahey [local attorney] contacted Mr. Cooper C. Thurber, a Mobile attorney, to represent Ms. Dunn and give her separation and protection from Judge DuBose because of Ms. Dunn's fear for her personal safety. Ms. Dunn then resigned as Judge DuBose's official court reporter." DuBose continued to try and keep the proceedings of the hearing from being transcribed, filing a motion with Judge Phillips. However, she denied the request. The above events resulted in 13 more charges of violations of ethics canons. Divorce case and visitation rights issue highlighted Count Three details a divorce proceeding in Clarke County in June 2007. The status of a minor child was a concerned and DuBose, after an off the record conservation with Robert Montgomery of Chatom, the attorney of the child's father, agreed to visitation rights. Robert "Bobby" Keahey, the lawyer for the mother was not informed of the decision. DuBose rescinded the visitation order the next day when he learned that the Department of Human Resources was investigating the father's alleged sexual misconduct regarding a child. He chided the attorneys in the matter and DHR for not informing him prior to his decision to "ill-advisedly or unadvisedly…just let a daddy have some time with his youngun…." He ordered DHR to amend its report to reflect that he did not know about the sexual misconduct allegations at the time he granted visitation rights. Bobby Keahey, the attorney for the mother, sought to have comments made a part of the record, that revealed the allegations would have tipped the father off and that the visitation was granted without his knowledge. DuBose told his court reporter, Chrissy Dunn, "Take your hands off the machine. Don't you write one thing he's saying I'm running this show. This is my courtroom. We'll do it how I want to do it," the complaint states, adding, "In addition, Judge DuBose declared that he would put on the record whatever he wanted to put on the record and that nothing was going on the record unless he wanted it on the record. Mr. Keahey requested three times but Judge DuBose ordered Ms. Dunn not to record 'a word of it.'" DuBose in testimony to the commission said he did tell Dunn not to record Keahey's remarks but denied that he said let's go off the record. However, the transcript relates that "an off the record discussion was held." Afterwards, DuBose told Dunn to transcribe the matter but to bring him the transcript and all related materials. She did so and he later called her and told her to delete the transcript from her computer. She did not do so. DuBose testified that he took the materials and put them in a sealed manila envelope in his desk. The complaint again states the requirements of a court reporter to properly record and preserve proceedings of a court matter. This matter resulted in four counts against Judge DuBose. Derogatory comments Count Four details comments that DuBose made to Mobile lawyer John White in DuBose's courtroom in Grove Hill. DuBose, who knew White, told him of health problems allegedly caused by injuries from falling out of a recliner that had resulted in a lawsuit by DuBose against La-Z-Boy, Inc. DuBose complained to White that the Mobile Circuit Court judge in the case, James C. Wood, "ran off" all of DuBose's lawyers in the case. The complaint said DuBose grew "hostile and angry" and stated, "I'm tired of the Mobile judges [expletive deleted] with me" and specifically named Judges Charles A. Graddick, John R. Lockett and Wood. He told White, the complaint details, "You need to go and let these judges know that I know they're meeting about me and how they got to stop [expletive deleted] with me. They better be careful because I've got eyes and ears down there…You know John there are a lot more lawyers from Mobile that come up here than lawyers from up here that go down there. I'm going to send a message through these lawyers that come from Mobile that the judges need to stop messing with me." He instructed White to inform Mobile attorneys that he had "every intention of staying on the bench for 18 years and that his goal while there is to '[expletive deleted] them, every one, and get them out of business because they have [expletive deleted] up my life." He repeatedly made "derogatory remarks" about Mobile judges and Mobile attorneys, the complaint alleges. On one occasion he said he wanted to tie Peter Burns, the opposing lawyer in the Sullivan estate case, to his vehicle and drag him several miles. DuBose told the commission that he did not make the statements attributed to him but again the commission said his denial was a "misrepresentation of fact." His derogatory comments resulted in six charges. Probation revocations without defendants, defense counsel Count Five states that DuBose revoked the probation of four defendants who were not present for the revocation hearings. The defense lawyer, probation officer and prosecutor were not present. Only a probation office secretary was present. Such action is contrary to the canons of ethics and resulted in seven charges. Chatom 'outburst' to lawyers detailed Count Six relates an incident that happened Jan. 11 during a routine hearing in an estate case at the Washington County Courthouse in Chatom. Prior to the hearing he instructed his court reporter [now Jessica Bell, since Chrissy Dunn's resignation] to leave the courtroom and had Sheriff Richard Stringer close the door. No one else was present and DuBose took off his judicial robe and left the bench and stood before the lawyers present, Bobby Keahey of Grove Hill, Gaines McCorquodale of Jackson and Tatum Turner of Chatom to make comments. After the hearing he again took off his robe and made comments. The complaint states, "On both occasions…Judge DuBose made threatening or intimidating remarks with the apparent intent of discouraging anyone from providing information of the Judicial Inquiry Commission or the Alabama State Bar." The complaint says he made the following remarks, or words to the same effect: "I might be older…but I can still stomp a mud hole in an ass and walk it dry with the best of them." He said people were trying to get him. "You can go up there [to Montgomery] and tell lies, but if you don't see me do it, if you don't hear me say it, don't write it down. If you're going to say or write something about me, it better be what you saw me do or what you heard me say and not what somebody told you and it better not be a [expletive deleted] lie." He said the Judiciary Inquiry Commission "might get me…but I will not go gently into that good night and I might forgive, but I will never forget." He told the three lawyers, "I'm smarter than every one of y'all. That's one thing you need to know. Don't nothing go over Stuart's head. I got it all right here and if I have to, I'll tell it." He said, "Those [expletive deleted] in Montgomery don't have any sense; if they do, I haven't seen it yet." He said he was tired of people talking about his speeding. "I like to speed, and I'm [expletive deleted] sure not going to quit." He said people talked about his "cussing" but that he had worked construction work where "there was no such thing as a hammer; it was a [expletive deleted] hammer…no such thing as a drink of water; it's a [expletive deleted] drink of water. I'm not going to quit cussing either." DuBose admitted some of the remarks to the commission, including the one about a mudhole but denied the "forgiving and forgetting" remarks as well as remarks about people in Montgomery. His "outbursts," so called defined by the complaint, resulted in seven counts. Pledging to support 'home team' at Ezell's Fish Camp supper Count Seven reaches back to September 2006 to a dinner at Ezell's Fish Camp in Choctaw County where most of the lawyers for the First Judicial Circuit gathered to welcome him to the bench. DuBose had won the Democratic nomination and was certain of election since there was no Republican candidate. He restated remarks made in a letter to lawyers that he wanted to be a friend of the lawyers in the circuit. Many of the circuit's lawyers had opposed him, supporting Chris Bailey instead and the event was an apparent attempt to patch up differences. His letter stated, "Although, as it is well established, ex parte conferences with judges are ethically prohibited, everyone who practices in this Circuit, and I mean everyone, should know they have a friend in me in this job…." He told the gathering that he compared practicing law to sports, such as football or baseball. The complaint states, "He told the Circuit's attorneys in effect, that with him as judge, they would have a 'home-field advantage' over lawyers from other circuits. He also more specifically stated that they would have the home-field advantage in cases where the opposing counsel are lawyers from Mobile or Birmingham or defense attorneys." He told them he would have an "open-door" policy… "if one of them has a problem with a non-jury case assigned to him, that [the] attorney should come to him before the case is over because he cannot help him or her after the dispositional ruling in the case. He warned that, if the attorney does not come to him before the case is over and he subsequently rules adversely as to that attorney, that attorney cannot be mad at him or come complaining to him." He made derogatory remarks about Judge John Lockett, the judge in the Sullivan estate case, saying he wanted to be a good judge, not like Lockett and that the [lawyers] bar did not want a judge like Lockett. DuBose in testimony to the commission, denied making remarks about Judge Lockett. The Ezell's Fish Camp events resulted in nine charges against DuBose. Pushing loyalty pledge to attorneys after primary Count Eight details events that followed the June 2006 primary in which DuBose won a heated contest against Chris Bailey. DuBose won by 99 votes out of about 20,000 cast in three counties. Most of the lawyers had solicited Bailey to run and backed him in the primary, going so far as to list their names on newspaper endorsement ads. After his primary victory, DuBose called some of the attorneys who had signed the endorsement ad to meet with him. When he met with the lawyers at his Jackson office he was the Democratic nominee but still a candidate in the coming November general election. Bobby Keahey was "summoned" to DuBose's office the complaint states. It does not relate that Keahey, a former district attorney, and DuBose were old political foes in that DuBose had run against him unsuccessfully for the district attorney's office. The complaint states that Keahey was asked by DuBose to sign a pledge to support him for reelection. "In response, Mr. Keahey reminded Mr. DuBose that Mr. Keahey had voted for him in the primary, had not joined other lawyers in opposing him, and was not included in the newspaperadvertisement endorsement." DuBose persisted that he needed to sign and "get on board." Keahey said he would support him if he did a good job." Finally, Keahey told DuBose "it was not right for him to summon the lawyers and put pressure on them. This meeting lasted six minutes." DuBose testified that he did not have a meeting with Bobby Keahey. "Bobby was not invited. I promise you that." Jacqualyn Bradley, a Jackson attorney, met with DuBose and told him that she had supported his opponent. "In a confrontational and hostile tone, Mr. DuBose responded that she should have supported him…." DuBose "repeatedly and angrily" blamed Bradley and others who had supported Bailey for hurting his family. He said this wasn't the first time other lawyers had opposed him. He said he was supposed to get an earlier appointment to the bench by then Gov. Don Siegelman but a group of lawyers that included Bradley had blocked the appointment. DuBose testified to the commission that he did not accuse Bradley and others of "sabotaging his appointment to a judgeship." Bradley had signed the newspaper endorsement ad and DuBose asked her ton sign her name next to her name on the newspaper clipping to signify that she would support him in the next election. She declined, replying that she had "learned her lesson…and was not going to sign anything." She told him if he did a good job she would support him in six years. They stood and shook hands and DuBose sat down and made the notation, "Shook my hand and agreed to support me in six years, but refused to sign." DuBose testified that he met with Bradley but did not show her the newspaper endorsement ad or point out her name on the list. Steven Winters, a former assistant in the DA's office and a Butler attorney, met with DuBose. He, too, had signed the newspaper endorsement ad. DuBose asked him to initial beside his name on the ad as an indication that he would support him in the next election. Winters refused. "At times during this discussion, Mr. DuBose became 'heated,'" the complaint stated. DuBose testified that he did not ask Winters to sign the endorsement ad. Gil Gilmore and his sister, Wylynn Gilmore-Phillippi, met separately with DuBose. Both had signed the ad endorsing Bailey but both also signed the pledges that they would support DuBose in the next election. DuBose testified that he did not personally invite any attorney to his office and that he never talked to any lawyer about coming to his office to meet with him. He testified that he did not show any of the attorneys the newspaper endorsement ad, ask anyone to sign anything and that no one signed anything. Again, the commission said DuBose's comments were not factual. In the meetings, DuBose said he asked only that "bygones by bygones" and that he was "genuinely… extending to them [his] heartfelt forgiveness for everything they had done." The commission's complaint states that it does not believe any of DuBose's statements and repeatedly labels his views as a "misrepresentation of fact." The incidents surrounding the meetings result in seven more charges, bringing the total to 60. Randall L. Cole signed the complaint as chairman of the Judicial Inquiry Commission. He is a circuit judge in DeKalb County. The commission is made up of judges from different levels, attorneys and lay people. The commission meets infrequently and while it sometimes issues advisories, it has seldom issued formal complaints to the Court of the Judiciary such as this one. The Court of the Judiciary has even more infrequently held trials on complaints. Complete complaint on Internet site
The complete complaint can be downloaded from the Alabama Judicial System's Website at: www.judicial.state.al.us/judiciarydocs.cfm
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