Greene County Democrat

Tag: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall

  • Newswire : State, federal law enforcement raid 14 casinos in Jefferson County

    The Alabama AG’s Office obtained temporary restraining orders against the casinos, closing them for at least the near future.

    By: Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter

    State and federal authorities raided and closed 14 electronic bingo halls around Jefferson County this week, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said at a press conference on Wednesday.
    In a press release, Marshall said that his office obtained temporary restraining orders against all 14 businesses, which will keep them closed pending a court decision within the next two weeks. Law enforcement also confiscated more than 2,400 electronic bingo machines.
    “The facilities shut down today were operating in blatant violation of state law, apparently without fear of reprisal,” Marshall said. “Our action this week came in response to numerous complaints about the trouble that illegal gambling has brought into these communities. These citizens deserve better. Allowing criminal enterprises to operate freely, in broad daylight, is offensive to the rule of law and will not be tolerated.”
    The raids continue a decades-old argument over the legality of electronic bingo in the state. Numerous counties have passed bingo amendments that they believe give them the right to operate the games. Marshall and the state’s Supreme Court have disagreed, calling the games illegal slot machines.
    AG Marshall continues to pursue a lawsuit to close electronic bingo establishments in Greene County, despite Alabama Constitutional Amendment No. 743, which legalized them under the supervision of the Sheriff. A sign posted on the William M. Branch Greene County Courthouse door says the next hearing in the Greene County case is set for May 4, 2023.
    The electronic games, which are played at all Poarch Band of Creek Indians casinos, are legal under the federal definition of bingo and several states have also adopted that definition.
    The raids this week were conducted by ALEA, the FBI and DEA.

  • Newswire : Confirmation hearings for Judge Jackson wraps with independent witnesses

    Judge Katanji Brown Jackson


    With public hearings, the historic – and mostly despicable – confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson concluded on Thursday, March 24. And the Republican Party punctuated their four-day-long, racially-charged, and otherwise disrespectful digs at Judge Jackson.
    
In the classic “I’m not racist, I have a Black friend” portion of their shameful and spineless public denigration of the accomplished Harvard Law graduate, the GOP trotted out First Liberty Institute associate counsel Keisha Russell, a Black woman.
    
Russell, a favorite of GOP allies Fox News and other decidedly Republican-leaning networks, spent her testimony discussing critical race theory. “CRT makes race the predominant factor,” Russell remarked as she read a prepared statement. “America’s history as a lesson and blueprint as to how we must constantly seek to uphold and protect America’s founding promises. For these reasons, First Liberty opposes the nomination.”
    
Additionally, the GOP trotted out Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and administrative law professor Jennifer Mascott, both opposing Judge Jackson’s nominations, falsely stating that the Biden administration has embraced “ideology of the anti-incarceration and anti-police movement.”
    
Mascott insisted that Judge Jackson “may have a different view than traditionally applied methods of originalism,” a philosophy Republican-appointed judges have embraced.
    
Perhaps more forceful than the committee members, Democratic witnesses pushed back.
“We have waited far too long for this day, but we are nonetheless overjoyed that it has finally arrived. Judge Jackson’s presence on the court will matter tremendously,” said Wade Henderson, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
    
Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) decried the assault on Judge Jackson because of her gender and race. The congresswoman urged the Senate to consider Judge Jackson’s record.“[This is a] glass ceiling that many Americans believed that they would never live to see broken,” Congresswoman Beatty asserted. “Judge Jackson’s confirmation vote must not be isolated to her gender or her race. Instead, I urge you to examine her credentials and sterling judicial records closely. They read like a storybook for a perfectly prepared jurist to sit on the nation’s highest court.”
    
With the close of Thursday’s public hearings, the Senate Judiciary Committee plans to meet on Monday, March 28. The committee has tentatively scheduled a vote on the nomination on April 4.
    
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said he expects a full vote by April 11.
Democrats hope that some Republicans join them in voting to confirm Judge Jackson. Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), one of the main actors in these hearings, voted in 2021 to confirm Judge Jackson to the powerful D.C. appellate court.
    
Sen. Graham has signaled he’ll vote against confirmation this time.
 Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine, also voted to confirm Judge Jackson in 2021.
    
If the confirmation vote splits along party lines, Vice President Kamala Harris will cast the tiebreaker, assuring Judge Jackson’s ascension as the first Black woman Supreme Court Justice.


  • Birmingham dismantles Confederate monument that stood for 115 years

    Man stands at base of Confederate
    Monument in Birmingham Linn Park

    The base of a Confederate Soldiers and Sailors monument in Alabama’s largest city was all that remained Tuesday morning after crews worked overnight to dismantle it. The monument was built by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1905.
    Workers began Monday night, June 1, 2020, removing the top portion of the 56 foot tall obelisk in pieces in Birmingham’s Linn Park, about a day after protesters tried to remove it themselves during a protest over police brutality, including the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
    During Sunday night’s demonstrations, the statue of George Linn, a Confederate naval commander and past mayor of Birmingham, for whom the downtown park was named, was also toppled. On Monday morning the damaged statue was lying on the ground near its former pedestal.
    Live video filmed by AL.com and other Birmingham TV outlets overnight showed a flatbed truck hauling off the stone pieces in the early morning hours. It’s unclear where the pieces were being taken.
    The monument had been the subject of a court battle between the city of Birmingham and the state before protesters tried to bring it down Sunday.
    Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said the city faces a fine for violating a state law that bans the removal of Confederate and other long-standing monuments. Woodfin said the cost of a fine would be more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city.
    The Confederate memorial monument that has been the source of litigation and debate in downtown Birmingham for years was dismantled by the city on Monday night.
    The removal of the monument followed Sunday night’s demonstrations, which included an effort to take down the monument. During the demonstration, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin appeared and told demonstrators the city would remove the monument on Monday.
    City leaders, activists and others have called for the monument’s removal for years, but Alabama lawmakers passed a law aimed at protecting monuments like the one that has stood for more than a century in Linn Park.
    The high-profile fight over the monument has been seen by many in the Birmingham business community as another barrier to progress and a stain on the city’s national perception as it seeks to combat stereotypes while recruiting talent and companies to the Magic City.
    That law resulted in a lawsuit over the city’s prior installation of a covering to obscure view of the statue, triggering a $25,000 fine. But a court ruled the one-time $25,000 fine is the only punishment allowed for the violation of the law. Alabama lawmakers filed a bill earlier this year to allow tougher penalties, but the legislative session was disrupted by Covid-19 and the law did not pass.
    On Monday, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said if the city proceeded with the removal of the monument, he would perform the duties assigned to him in the act and pursue a new civil complaint against the city, which would trigger another $25,000 fine if successful.
    By Tuesday morning, more than $50,000 had already been raised in Birmingham to cover the cost of the fines. Mayor Woodfin said he was looking for a museum or cemetery that would be interested in accepting the monument.
    A demonstration on Monday night in Montgomery, Alabama led to the removal and damaging of a statue of General Robert E. Lee , which stood in front of the high school named for him in that city. The students at the school are now predominantly Black. Students and parents have been petitioning the school board for many years to change the name of the school.
    Some of the persons involved in pulling down the Robert E. Lee statue were arrested and charged by city police.