This happened two years ago today, in Skyline, Alabama.
[L]ogging contractor Phillip Dean discovered the signs he put up in his own front yard which read: 'Our court system is a joke' had been stolen. The signs were in response to a bitter divorce and custody court battle Dean had gone through. He reported the theft to the Skyline PD and much to his surprise, Dean was told by the Chief of Police that Jackson County sheriff's officers had removed his signs and taken them to the courthouse.
Local Judge Wallace Haralson was so offended by Dean's message (see picture), he ordered the man's arrest on contempt charges. Haralson pontificated that
"... the Court, finding that the signs are of such a disparaging nature as to constitute direct contempt of court, it is ordered that the Sheriff of Jackson County arrest the defendant.” Judge Haralson also added, “Following his arrest, the defendant shall not be entitled to bond.” Dean was arrested the next day.
Then, for a while, he was pretty much treated like the second coming of Hannibal Lecter. Before he was led into the courtroom, Dean recalls, "They put leg shackles, they put handcuffs, they put chains from my legs up to my waist. They put a chain around my waist. They put chains from my waist up here and had my hands pulled up like this." He was told he couldn't make a call, he claims, and denied food and water for 26 hours (Haralson says the imprisonment lasted only 12 hours). When the magistrate was satisfied that the insolent scoundrel had learned his lesson, Dean was released.
Haralson received the gentlest of knuckle-raps from the state Judicial Inquiry Commission, whose members asked him to "be more judicious in the future toward arresting powers." Not surprisingly, that didn't settle matters for Dean. So just the other day, he filed a two-million-dollar lawsuit against Haralson and Sheriff Mike Wells for illegal imprisonment. (via Fark)
I don't know if Phillip Dean deserves two million bucks for his trouble, but I do know that Constitution-shredding judges in Alabama can be removed.
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