The Making of a Lawyer: A coach, a janitor, and people with names straight out of history books helped drive a Deep South litigator on the battlefield of justice

Harvest Mitchell Gymnasium

 

How do you develop a legal practice that has lasted roughly half a century and produced court rulings that have achieved justice and transformed American society. Alabama's Donald Watkins has learned you don't do it on your own. It takes inspiration and determination of courageous people from various walks of life. In Watkins' case, he has been driven by a high school coach, a janitor, the family members of an unarmed man gunned down by police. Inspiration also has come from individuals whose names come straight from history books and are know by virtually all Americans.

What has the journey been like? Watkins describes it, in a post today at donaldwatkins.com, under the headline "A Tribute to Coach Harvest Mitchell, a Man of Class, Character, Honor, and Greatness." While many people, some of them famous, have played roles in Watkins' push for justice, one particular person is on his mind today.Writes Watkins:

I have been privileged to meet many great Americans on my journey through life.  Coach Harvest Mitchell is one of them. 

This article constitutes my personal tribute to Coach Mitchell, one of the bravest and greatest men I have known during my 46-year legal career.

I was born into the family of Levi and Lillian Watkins.  They were my parents and first set of heroes.

As a young child growing up in Montgomery, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was my pastor, Sunday School teacher, and Baptist Training Union instructor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church.  Rosa Parks was my mom’s close friend and a frequent visitor to our home. 

The NAACP, America’s oldest civil rights organization, awarded me a scholarship to desegregate The University of Alabama’s law school.  It was there that I met Mr. Ramus Rhodes, the remarkable “janitor” who would mold me into a prolific and effective litigator. 

Donald Watkins and Scottsboro Boy Clarence Norris.

After law school, I met and represented Clarence Norris, the last known surviving “Scottsboro Boy.” We fought for two years to secure a full and unconditional pardon from the State of Alabama for Mr. Norris. The pardon, which was awarded in 1976, ended a 45-year legal fight to clear the nine innocent Scottsboro Boys of trumped-up rape charges involving two white women

In 1975, Ida Mae Whitehurst and her daughter-in-law, Florence Whitehurst, gave me an opportunity to reform the Montgomery Police Department. Their case involved a police execution of an unarmed and innocent Bernard Whitehurst on December 2, 1975. After officers realized they had killed the wrong man, they engaged in a massive cover-up of the shooting. They also planted a “throw-down” pistol by Whitehurst’s dead body and falsified witness statements.

The Whitehurst case evolved into a nationally recognized scandal that resulted in the resignations of Montgomery’s mayor and police commissioner, the indictment of three police officers, and the firing or resignation of eight others. On April 3, 1977, the Washington Post called Whitehurst's case, “Alabama's Watergate."

That leads us to a man who was known as a highly successful high-school coach in football, basketball, and track and field. Ironically, in a state that reveres its White coaches -- Nick Saban, Paul "Bear Bryant, Ralph "Shug Jordan -- this Black coach was forced to operate mostly in the shadows, receiving little credit for his achievements until after his death. Writes Watkins:

In 1976, I met and had the privilege of representing Coach Harvest Mitchell in his career-long fight to implement fair employment and promotional practices within the Florence City School System. 

Coach Mitchell was employed for 35 years by the Florence City Board of Education, where he coached different sports and taught physical education and health.  Mitchell made his mark as a head athletics coach, spending ten seasons at Burrell-Slater High School and seven at Coffee High School.

Mitchell was head football, basketball, and track coach at all-black Burrell-Slater from 1959 through 1969. Mitchell built Burrell-Slater into a North Alabama sports powerhouse.

During his 10 years at Burrell-Slater, Mitchell’s record in basketball was 209 victories and 46 loses; in football, it was 55 victories and 19 loses. Mitchell was nominated for basketball coach of the year eight of those 10 years and won five times. Mitchell also was chosen coach of the year in football once. These impressive achievements were complemented by the successful tournament participation of teams under his direction. Mitchell had no assistant coaches.

In 1968, Mitchell was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in Madison County, Alabama.

Yet, the Florence Board of Education refused to award Mitchell a head coaching job at the predominantly White Coffee High School after Burrell-Slater was closed in 1969 (due to a court desegregation order).  Mitchell applied for a vacant head coaching position in football after the 1969-70 season ended and a head basketball coaching job during the 1970-71 school year. Both applications were rejected in favor of lesser qualified white applicants.

On March 6, 1972, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered U.S. District Judge Frank H. McFadden to award the head basketball coaching job at Coffee High School to Harvest Mitchell. Judge McFadden, who was affectionately known in the state’s white community as “Big Red,” was notorious for denying judicial relief for deserving Black plaintiffs in school desegregation lawsuits. 

Frank McFadden, an “old school” Mississippi native, regularly used the N-word in his private conversations about Black litigants.

Harvest Mitchell coached basketball at Coffee High School for four seasons, while also serving as an assistant football coach. The school, fan, and booster support Mitchell enjoyed at Burrell-Slater was replaced by tidal waves of racial hatred and resentment from the administration, fans, and boosters of Coffee High School.

I represented Harvest Mitchell when the School Board tried to replace him with a white basketball coach whose objective qualifications for the job were inferior to Mitchell’s.  We returned to Judge Frank McFadden’s courtroom to fight for Mitchell’s job.  After a lengthy trial, McFadden, once again, refused to enforce Mitchell’s constitutional right to fair employment practices.

Coach Mitchell withstood unbearable racial prejudice at Coffee High School without flinching or allowing it to bother him or impair his coaching abilities.  To this day, Coach Mitchell is one of the greatest personal heroes in my life.

On November 10, 2023, the honor and respect from the Florence City Board of Education that eluded Coach Harvest Mitchell in his life was conferred upon him in death. On that day, the Board of Education renamed the Burrell Slater Gymnasium in honor of Coach Mitchell. This board action was a fitting tribute to a man who loved everybody in the Florence City School System, even when they did not have it in their hearts to love him back.

In the end, Harvest Mitchell was more than a coach, more than a man who racked up dazzling won-lost records in the world of sports, more than a teacher. He left a big mark by making the workplace more fair and just for everyone. And he did it in a time and place where prejudice was woven into the fabric of employment -- and that had to be gut-wrenchingly difficult. Donald Watkins puts Harvest Mitchell's life in perspective:

May Coach Harvest Mitchell’s unconquerable spirit, unconditional love for humanity, and quest for excellence in the classroom and sports arena live on in our hearts forever!

I am so blessed to have represented Harvest Mitchell and write this beautiful ending to his story. In the end, Harvest Mitchell's unconditional love for humanity conquered every roadblock that kept the Florence City School System from formally recognizing his greatness as a man and a coach.

Never, ever underestimate the power of God and the fighting spirit of men who will not allow the indignities of other men to rob them of their manhood.

 

Martin Luther King (left) and Rosa Parks

What's it like to be targeted by the White, right-wing thugs -- also known as "The Cabal" -- who effectively control life, and the law, in a Red state like Alabama?

Civil-rights icon Rosa Parks

 

What is it like to become the target of the White, conservative political thugs who effectively run a Deep Red state like Alabama? Donald Watkins, with more than 40 years of experience as a lawyer in the state -- and, more recently, as an online investigative journalist at his DonaldWatkins.com Web site -- has found himself in the midst of multiple controversies that give him keen insight into that question.

How bad can it get in Alabama? This much is clear: Exercising freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Alabama is dangerous. In fact, veteran Montgomery attorney Thomas T. "Tommy" Gallion III says in his book, Shadow Government, Southern Style: A Saga of Political Corruption From D.C. to Dixie (2020), available from Amazon and Kindle eBooks that Alabama is run by a "Cabal."

Mrs. Schnauzer (my wife, Carol) and I have experiences similar to those directed at Watkins, and ours were driven by my reporting on matters of public interest here at Legal Schnauzer. My journalism apparently hit close enough to home that members of The Cabal designated my blog for shutdown. In the process, our health, safety,freedom, lives, jobs, house, possessions, and much more were put at risk.

If we were ruined financially, even killed -- and I think it's possible our lives still are in danger -- along with suffering severe physical and emotional trauma . . . well, that apparently was just part of the plan, from The Cabal's perspective. We're talking about people who do not care about the damage they inflict on others, all for engaging in activities that are protected under the U.S. Constitution. But Alabama's Cabal is part of what we call "The New Confederacy," and they do not operate under our nation's founding documents. They made up their own set of rules, which are applied for their benefit. The chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court even has argued that the court upon which he sits is not bound by rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. We're not joking about this. "Justice" in Alabama really is that warped, and I'm not aware of anyone on the right wing who bats an eye about it. 

A leading proponent of "New Confederacy" thinking was the late Eugene "Bull" Connor, the infamous and racist public safety  commissioner of Birmingham, who is best known for siccing police dogs on peaceful protesters during the civil-rights era.  

We can provide plenty of details about what it's like to get in the cross hairs of the Alabama Cabal, and Tommy Gallion has covered them extensively in his book. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) But that is a story for another day, and we will have a post on our experiences coming shortly, But for now, let's examine the first-person account of Donald Watkins, who knows far more than most what it's like to get caught in the eye of a hurricane created by Alabama's Cabal. Under the title "Our Justice Systems Have Always Been Weaponized Against Agents of Change," Watkins writes:

On March 18, 2023, The Tuscaloosa News published an article titled, “Disgraced Lawyer Donald Watkins Blogs from Prison.” The article was published seven months AFTER the publication of a widely-read article about my release from a federal prison camp near El Paso, Texas, on August 25, 2022.

In 2018, I had been indicted and prosecuted by Birmingham, Alabama-based federal prosecutors for business-related conduct that unbiased federal prosecutors in Newark, New Jersey, thoroughly reviewed two years earlier and concluded was not criminal. I was “railroaded” in a Birmingham federal court and imprisoned for three years.

I was in and out of the federal prison system before my appeals had been exhausted.

The entire ordeal was an Alabama-led effort to undermine, discredit, and destroy me. Over a four-decade period, my landmark civil-rights cases had profoundly changed the political, educational, economic, and social landscape of Alabama. I aggressively fought all forms of racial discrimination in a state that prided itself on "massive resistance" to equal rights for its Black citizens.

I was deemed a "troublemaker" who disturbed the Birmingham business community's "good relations with the colored community." I had also been asked to leave Birmingham on more than one occasion.

After I left public office as a Montgomery city council member in 1983, Emory Folmar, the city's arch-conservative Republican mayor and then-Chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, publicly proclaimed that my departure from the council “was one of the greatest blessings since the Yankee troops went home in 1870.”

Was it a coincidence that the Tuscaloosa News would trash Watkins' reputation? Not at all, Watkins writes:

The Tuscaloosa News is the same Alabama newspaper that ran an attack ad against Megan Rondini, an innocent University of Alabama honors student who identified a local Tuscaloosa playboy as her rapist in a 2015 police report. With its publication of this ad, The Tuscaloosa News openly platformed an act of “victim shaming” that maliciously targeted Megan Rondini in July 2017 (after her death).

Rondini committed suicide after Tuscaloosa County law enforcement officials refused to pursue criminal justice in her rape case solely because the designated offender/suspect came from a wealthy Tuscaloosa family that contributed mega bucks to the Alabama Crimson Tide football program.

From the moment she filed her rape report, the criminal-justice system in Tuscaloosa County became weaponized against Megan Rondini. After all, she had the audacity to timely report her rape and she demanded that her alleged well-known rapist be prosecuted.

In 2017, I was the only journalist in the state who wrote and published in-depth articles about Megan Rondini’s rape case. Out of fear that they would lose advertising dollars from corporate entities and the political bodies run by the Alabama’s rich, White, male oligarchs, the state’s mainstream press turned a blind eye to Megan Rondini’s rape case.

Watkins calls Tuscaloosa County, home to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and its GOAT (Greatest of All Time) football coach Nick Saban a "Hostile Venue for Truth Seekers and the Fair Administration of Justice." How hostile can it get? Consider this: The name of former U.S. Sen. Luther Strange (R-AL) popped up in a Tuscaloosa County divorce case involving a GOP political operative with extensive ties to Strange. In no time, the divorce-case file was sealed. When, and under what grounds, was the file sealed? Well, that's hard to know with the file sealed, but we have yet to see any grounds involving an adult that would lawfully merit sealing. The case did involve a very young child at the time and clearly involved issues related to his custody -- and possibly his parentage. Records that we've seen indicate the case was filed, and sealed, roughly in 2010. Some 13 years later, the case apparently remains sealed. Is the Tuscaloosa County Courthouse keeping secrets for Luther Strange and someone close to him? That appears to be the case, and Donald Watkins says that would be fitting:

Tuscaloosa is the same county where Allen May, a newly appointed White Circuit Court judge, ruled against me (without a trial) in a so-called “defamation case” that was based upon five investigative articles I wrote and published about Megan Rondini’s rape case.

Judge May, who was appointed to the bench by former Gov. Robert Bentley, applied a simple “negligence” standard to justify his adverse ruling, and not the more rigorous “reckless disregard of the truth” standard mandated in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) for defamation cases involving journalists.

Robert Bentley, a Tuscaloosa native, was forced to resign as Alabama’s governor in 2017 after I exposed his long-running illicit sex affair with Rebekah Caldwell Mason, a married senior advisor, in my “Forbidden Love” and “Executive Betrayal” series of investigative reports. Bentley also pled guilty to ethics charges arising from his “sex-for-power” scandal.

May, by the way, has documented ties to Paul Bryant Jr., the "Mr. Money Bags" behind the Crimson Tide football program and a man with a sketchy business history that includes documented ties to wire fraud, via his Alabama Reassurance firm. 

Judge May completely disregarded my asserted legal position that truth is an absolute defense to a claim of defamation. A subsequent lawsuit between two business partners in an Alabama-based public relations firm confirmed that the plaintiffs in the defamation case had, in fact, thrust themselves into the Megan Rondini rape controversy, as I had reported in the articles in question.

The all-white Alabama Supreme Court (in a state that is 26% black), led by Confederate flag-waving Chief Justice Tom Parker, unanimously and summarily affirmed the ruling of the Tuscaloosa County judge.

Today, Chief Justice Tom Parker is the drum major for former Alabama governor George Wallace’s old doctrine of “interposition and nullification.” Parker has repeatedly proclaimed in writing that U.S. Supreme Court cases DO NOT bind the Alabama Supreme Court.

Tom Parker’s stated judicial views on this subject faithfully and fully embrace Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s 1958 infamous declaration: “Damn the law. Down here, we make our own law.”

As for journalism, it does not have a proud history in Alabama. Writes Watkins:

Alabama has been the home of co-opted and compromised journalists since the Mobile Press Register, Montgomery Advertiser, Tuscaloosa News, Birmingham News, and Huntsville Times volunteered to participate in the FBI’s COINTELPRO program to undermine, discredit, and destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and thousands of black civil rights activists around the country, beginning in August 1958.

Journalists affiliated with these Alabama media groups actively facilitated the FBI in its attempt to: (a) deny Dr. King and Rosa Parks “respectability” within the Black community, (b) prevent the long-term growth of the civil-rights movement, especially among youth, (c) block free speech and access to the media for civil-rights leaders, and (d) prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could unify and electrify the civil-rights movement.

These journalists faithfully adhered to COINTELPRO’s original goals. As a result, their media organizations have been unrelenting in their efforts to undermine, discredit and destroy strong and effective Black leadership in the state.

Whenever these journalists praise a Black civic or political leader today, it is usually someone who has been thoroughly deconstructed and properly “niggerized.” For those who do not know what “niggerization” means, it is the systematic act of dehumanizing a person or an entire race of people to render him/her/them fearful.

The institutions and people who administer the “niggerization” program in Alabama today have never lifted a finger to help Black people or other Americans of color share in this nation’s upward mobility, economic prosperity, political advancement, or social justice.

How have people of color, and those who support fundamental human rights for all, survived in Alabama? With difficulty appears to be the answer, writes Watkins:

My international business partners occasionally remind me that every negative article about me on the Internet emanates from sources in Alabama. Outside of the state, I have a totally different and very positive public profile.

Because of my long and effective record of protecting and advancing civil rights in Alabama, leading members of the state’s ultra-conservative political establishment, law enforcement community, and captive members of the mainstream media have gone to great lengths to portray me in the most negative light possible on various Internet platforms.

This concerted effort, which is digitally platformed by the state’s mainstream news media, is a continuation of Alabama's dutiful role in the FBI’s original COINTELPRO program.

The courageous work of a growing number of independent online journalists in Alabama, coupled with articles published on my constellation of Internet platforms, has effectively neutralized the adverse effects of Alabama-generated COINTELPRO negativity in my case.

Unfortunately, other similarly situated Black leaders in the Alabama and around the nation have not been so lucky.

Are these issues limited to Alabama and the South? No, says Watkins, and Donald Trump's MAGA movement is proof of that:

Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters are right about one thing – the FBI has a long and ugly track record of weaponizing Department of Justice resources against emerging leaders who challenged and changed the established social, economic, and political order.

However, from January 2017 to January 2021, Donald Trump headed the government that used the Department of Justice as a weapon against those who were disliked by his administration.

Listed below are the names of some well-known Black leaders who were targeted by the federal law-enforcement establishment for neutralization and destruction, commencing in 1916. These accomplished individuals led highly successful movements that challenged the status quo in American life:

1. Callie House (1916)

2. Marcus Garvey (1922)

3. Billie Holiday (1947)

4. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1958)

5. Richard Arrington, Jr. (1988)

6. U.W. Clemon (1996)

7. Nathan Chapman (2003)

My main issue with Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters on the question of the weaponization of the Department of Justice is simple: Where were you when the Department of Justice’s massive arsenal of law-enforcement weapons was turned on Black civil rights activists and those Whites of interracial goodwill who supported us?

Nobody within the MAGA movement has answered this question. I think we know why.

Unable to handle his own false and deceptive claims, Dry Alabama con man Matt Osborne tries to blame others for being "confused" or getting stuff "wrong"

Matt Osborne

After engaging in a substantial back-and-forth with me, Dry Alabama scammer Matt Osborne pulled a surprise by producing some evidence that actually did illuminate issues we had been discussing. But in keeping with his underhanded tendencies, Osborne tried to blame my wife, Carol, for being "confused" and "wrong" when she had not written the first word in our discussion. In fact, I was acting as translator for Carol on Osborne's jumbled ramblings, and any confusion was caused by Osborne or me, trying to grasp events that happened at our home while I was in jail.

Osborne left the following comment, on our April 17 post, at 11:42 a.m. on April 19:

Matt Osborne said...

Roger, ask Carol if these words are familiar:

"Me and the kitties got plenty of sleep yesterday. And I woke in the evening to feed them and I discovered your wonderful gift on the front porch which I can't wait to try. BTW. then I had a chicken sandwich for later dinner. So it was low-key to say the least. And I agree about it being any number of bloggers etc. These folks are psycho!! I'm trying not to let them get me down. The latest worry is spark coming out of our icemaker inside our ancient freezer. I was banging on it. Yikes!! But it is not hooked up to make ice. I may need to get a couple screw drivers, flip the circuit breaker and get the dang thing out of there! It serves no purpose whatsoever. Roger and I had talked about removing it before the arrest. I just hope it doesn't cause a fire. Now I'm scared to go to sleep But I need to just not banf (bang) it in the future."

(Note: Carol's reference to her late dinner being "low-key, to say the least." That suggests this was on date where she normally would have a special meal. Carol believes it was around Thanksgiving or Christmas, which would have been 1-2 months after the Osborne visit to our home, around Halloween.)

^^^ This is the text of the Facebook email that Carol sent to thank Melissa for the food, including typos. Melissa is under no obligation to put her account number on display for your satisfaction. No one is ever under an obligation to prove they sent you a gift 5.5 years ago just because you can't remember it.

When I arrived at the house with my girlfriend, Carol was expecting us, invited us both in the door. Then she showed us where you had been arrested in the basement and my girlfriend held the camera while Carol told us what had occurred in there. A lot of concerned people were very interested to see that video and the photos I took. Good luck getting any law enforcement agency to act on your complaint of an unarmed home invasion by a couple of people trying to help your wife.

As for who told me about your brothers: YOU DID. You have written several blog posts about them. See:

https://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2016/11/here-is-ex-parte-letter-that-my-brother.html

And:

https://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-brothers-are-trying-to-turn-missouri.html  

Do you now deny ever writing these blog posts, you funny little man?

Osborne seemed to think he had a "gotcha moment" here. But I'm not sure how he figured that, given that -- as usual -- he has a slippery grip on the truth:

legalschnauzer said...
Matt:

Yes, those words are familiar to Carol because she wrote them to Melissa, thinking she had met her when you came to our home. As for the food, Carol remembers you and your companion bringing a bag of grocery items with you when you came to our home. She doesn't remember a food basket appearing on our doorstep, but so much was going on during that time period, her mind likely was jumbled. At that point, Carol was running the risk of being arrested every time she opened the door. You can ask your friend Doug Jones about that because I'm sure he knows details about my arrest, theft of our home, the cheat jobs on our employment, etc. If not, he can find out from his friends Rob Riley and Luther Strange.

Carol does remember the ice-maker issue, and she obviously thanked Melissa, so there must have been a food basket. I hope you have some appreciation for the fact that, a few days earlier, Carol had come upon a scene in our basement that made her think her husband had been murdered -- as it turned out, I had only been kidnapped. But either way, that kind of thing knocks your world off its axis and your current utter lack of empathy for what we went through is a little creepy for someone who claims to be a liberal, caring about a free press, First Amendment, civil rights, etc.

 I can only attribute that change to your affiliation with Doug Jones, however far back it goes. Jones is sort of the William Barr of insurance fraud, as practiced by U of Alabama honcho Paul Bryant Jr. As U.S. attorney in Bham, Jones let Bryant and his Alabama Reassurance Co. get away with millions of dollars in insurance fraud from a case that already had been proven in Philadelphia. That's one of many reasons I find Jones to be a repugnant individual, but perhaps you will discover that on your own someday. BTW, I sure can understand why Melissa blocked Carol on Facebook, given the traumatizing "pathos" of our ice-maker issue.

Another thought or two:

(1) Regarding possible trespass, I'm talking about a civil case, which still is within the six-year statute of limitations. I'm not necessarily looking forward to bringing such a claim, but it remains a possibility -- especially since you continue to insult and trash both of us, giving us reason to believe you entered our home under false pretenses, that you never were there to actually help. (Plus, it's clear the journalists who have disproven my reporting do not exist, so you have no real reason to have soured on me or my work. That's only happened because of Doug Jones.) The possibility of ulterior motives becomes even stronger now that we know you have a taste for acting under fraudulent and deceptive circumstances. You might think your "funny little man" comment is clever, but it is just digging your liability hole deeper. (BTW, I might be a lot of things, but I'm not little; I'm 6-4, 215, and that's not a Trump tale. I also tend to be good-natured, but it's a simple fact that I'm not "little.")

(2) Of course I wrote those posts about my brothers. But you claimed they were trying to "help" us, and you certainly could not have gotten that from those posts. In fact, both posts you cite are about my brothers (especially David, the lawyer) making abusive use of the court system to hurt us. And their "incapacitated" case was so weak that even a Missouri judge dismissed it for lack of evidence. Specifically, I think David and Paul asked for it to be dismissed because they seemingly admitted they had no evidence. Bottom line: You didn't get info about my brothers "helping" us from my posts, so it must have come from somewhere else. Maybe "RogerS" told you. Oh wait, he doesn't exist either.

Before receiving a reply from Osborne, I decided to add a few facts about my family, an issue with which Osborne clearly is uninformed:

legalschnauzer said...
Matt:

I have to chuckle that you, a supposed liberal, would try to put positive spin on my brothers, both of whom are avowed Trumpists and right-wingers. Both of them, as I understand it, are serious racists. Paul, I'm told, made sport out of calling Michele Obama a "gorilla." David used to bitch about black students getting scholarships in law school. Even David's special-needs, teen-age son is a Trumper, though he probably would never have health care if Trump had his way.

I never heard a racist thought within my family growing up, but when I moved to Birmingham, my brothers apparently took over and brought Kluxerism (or something like it) to the forefront. My understanding is that my mother was horrified to see black people, quite a few of them, at our wedding. They were our friends, and I think that turned my mother against Carol, deciding it was Carol's fault that we lived in Birmingham among the "darkies." I think my mother also was convinced Carol turned me into a n----r loving liberal, even though I had generally been a Democrat for as long as I can remember -- casting my first vote for Jimmy Carter, although being stupid enough to vote for Reagan and Bush I in the '80s.

You have a tendency to mouth off about things you know nothing about. You absolutely have no clue about my brothers. Among my whole family, I'm pretty sure Carol and I are the only liberals, the ones who believe in equal rights based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, LGBLT, etc. I have one niece, Erin, who is a physician and might be a lib, but I'm pretty sure she's the only possible non-Bush/Trumper, besides Carol and me.

And you spend your time calling us kooks because Doug Jones doesn't like my (accurate) journalism? You truly are a misguided soul.

Try thinking for yourself, funny little man.

Osborne then seemed determined to prove Carol got something "wrong," even though she had not directly engaged in our conversation for even one word:

Matt Osborne said...
" . . . thinking she had met her when you came to our home";

So you now admit Carol is confused, good

" . . . As for the food, Carol remembers you and your companion bringing a bag of grocery items with you when you came to our home";

Yes, this is what nefarious agents of Doug Jones do, we all bring groceries to your door, we are sinister little grocery elves

" . . . She doesn't remember a food basket appearing on our doorstep, but so much was going on during that time period, her mind likely was jumbled";

So glad you can admit Carol is wrong.

Your threats to sue are hilarious. Bring it on if you are so confident. I DEMAND that you initiate this litigation immediately.

I decided to set a few things straight, since Osborne (known as a disinformation practitioner) obviously could not do it:

legalschnauzer said...
Matt:

Carol doesn't admit that she is wrong or confused about anything and neither do I. In this back and forth via blog comments and Twitter, Carol has not written one word. If you can find a word she's written, let me know. If you want to discuss it with her directly, give it a shot.

I've tried to translate your confused ramblings and asked her about a couple of things, but any confusion comes from my struggle to convey what you were trying to say, between all the insults and spitball tosses. I told her that you seemed to be claiming that you and your female friend presented Carol with a food basket when you came to our house somewhere around Halloween (Oct. 30?). Carol said, "No, they gave me a regular bag of groceries." And you now admit she was right about that. The food basket apparently arrived at some later date, from a person (Melissa Brewer) you claim Carol had never met. What date did Melissa send the food basket? How big a gap was there between the two food events?

Carol received a number of care packages during that time, and she was grateful for all of them. But I told her I thought you said you and your friend gave her a food basket at our house, and Carol said, "No, it was a bag of groceries." And she's right. As for me, I was in jail, so I don't know what happened, and I'm probably a pretty bad translator on these issues.

The food bag/basket issue seems meaningless to me, and I wonder why you are obsessed with it. As for someone being wrong on substantive issues, let's look at your track record:

(1) You are wrong about the law on interfering with a federal election;

(2) You are wrong about the law re: the meaning of the word "scam";

(3) You are wrong about journalists "disproving" my reporting;

(4) You are wrong about my brothers trying to "help" us;

On top of that . . .

(1) You don't deny asking around about access to our computer;

(2) You seem to admit that you are an agent for Doug Jones -- and apparently have been for some time.

Finally, any lawsuit Carol and I might file will come when we are ready, within the statute of limitations -- and we have several months to decide on that. If it happens, you will be among the first to know.

To end things on a lighter note, here is "Funny Little Man," a lovely tune from Seals and Crofts'  classic 1972 album Summer Breeze. The album is filled with great stuff and long has been one of my favorites. When Osborne pulled his "funny little man" line, I immediately thought of Seals and Crofts -- and my copy of Summer Breeze, which was lost in the bogus foreclosure on our home:







Now that I'm on a Seals and Crofts roll, I can't get off. The duo were known mostly for ballads, but here is another song from Summer Breeze, a rocker called "Say":




Finally, we have one of my long-time favorites, called "Advance Guards." It almost sounds like a children's song to me, but I think it's about a heavy subject -- thinking back over your life in the minutes before confronting possible death. Not sure if my interpretation is correct, but 45 years after I first heard it, the song still resonates. "Advance Guards" also is from Summer Breeze, but this is a live version:

Activist Matt Osborne and his ties to Doug Jones campaign -- plus his actions in Dry Alabama false-flag project -- raise red flags here at Legal Schnauzer

Matt Osborne

About a week after my "arrest for blogging" in 2013, Alabama activist Matt Osborne contacted my wife, Carol, and asked if he could come to our home in Birmingham. Carol gave the OK, and Osborne and a friend named Melissa Brewer showed up at our door with "supplies" (canned goods, cat food, over-the-counter meds, etc.) -- and they took photos and videos of the area in our basement where Shelby County deputies had beaten and abducted me.

I had been online friends with Matt for a while, generally sharing his liberal views and keeping up with his writings at various Web sites -- mostly Osborne Ink and Breitbart Unmasked. I saw him as an important Web-based voice -- a talented, intelligent guy, who was pugnacious enough to do battle with underhanded conservatives, such as the felon poser, and gay-sex troller Ali (Akbar) Alexander and his nutty National Bloggers Club.

For about four years, Carol and I have assumed Osborne came to our home in good faith, from a genuine intention to help at a time of crisis. But I started to have doubts about that when Osborne contacted me in October 2017 -- about six weeks before the Doug Jones-Roy Moore U.S. Senate special election -- and informed me he was connected to the Jones campaign in some capacity, suggesting I should retract a post about a Russian-bot attack on the Moore campaign's Twitter account.

Why did Osborne's ties to Doug Jones alarm me? Well, I've known since spring 2008 that Doug Jones is a shady, ethically challenged guy -- mainly because of his lawyer-tribe ties to despicable Republican thug Rob Riley, the oily son of former Gov. Bob Riley. In fact, I was cheated out of my job at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where I had worked for almost 20 years, after I reported on the dubious reasons Rob Riley joined Jones in a lawsuit against HealthSouth -- a story that originated with Sam Stein, of Huffington Post.

For the record, I don't think it's a coincidence that UAB concocted a bogus scheme to fire me -- falsely claiming I was blogging at work, contrary to the words of their own IT expert (Sean Maher) who had examined my work computer activity -- not long after my report on Jones, Riley, and the HealthSouth case. My blogging likely was seen as a threat to Jones and Riley's share of what would become $51 million in legal fees from the HealthSouth case, money that probably helped fund Jones' U.S. Senate campaign in 2017.

I also learned that Jones is a world-class backstabber, with a string of victims that include former Gov. Don Siegelman, late VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor, and Dothan developer Ronnie Gilley. Also, it became clear that Jones was prone to look the other way at the crimes of moneyed elites, such as University of Alabama honcho Paul Bryant Jr., whose company was tied to a massive insurance-fraud case in Pennsylvania.

In short, Doug Jones is a "bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling," and I've come to believe anyone affiliated with him has a shaky moral compass, poor judgment, a strong case of naivete -- or a combination of the three.

Doug Jones

My concerns about Osborne's actions involving Carol and me grew with recent reports that he was a central figure in "Dry Alabama," a disinformation project designed to boost Doug Jones in the Senate race by falsely claiming Roy Moore supported a statewide ban on alcohol -- never mind that it's hard to see how a U.S. senator could provide political muscle on a state issue such as alcohol sales and consumption.

What about specifics that might lead us to have qualms about Matt Osborne? Let's consider:

The "RogerS" scam

Evidence suggests my arrest, at least in part, was driven by a narrative involving a mysterious character called "RogerS." Here's how we explained it in a post dated July 13, 2015:

Members of a right-wing bloggers' club concocted the notion that I was encouraging a federal lawsuit against them, and other conservative figures, and they wrote about it obsessively in the days leading to, and following, my October 2013 arrest.

At the heart of the matter is a commenter at a progressive Web site who goes by the handle "RogerS" and appears to have a fair amount of knowledge about legal matters--in fact, he was encouraging liberal activist Brett Kimberlin to file a federal RICO lawsuit against members of the bloggers club and other individuals on the right. When Kimberlin did, in fact, file a RICO suit, I wound up in jail roughly one week later. Coincidence? That's hard to say, but let's look at what we do know.

In certain corners of the blogosphere, it became popular to suggest that "RogerS" and Roger Shuler (me) were one and the same--even though I had nothing to do with the comments in question, I was not aware of any possible federal lawsuit, and I have no clue about the identity of "RogerS." Still, evidence suggests I might have paid a high price--loss of my freedom for five months and eventual loss of our home-- for something that did not involve me.

As for the National Bloggers Club, it operates under a media umbrella created by the late right-wing publisher and provocateur Andrew Breitbart--and its president, Ali A Akbar, has a criminal history and admitted connections to former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove. Akbar also has a history of trolling for gay sex on adult Web sites.

Where did RogerS originate? We've explained that, too:

"RogerS" apparently made his first appearance in a September 18, 2013, post at the progressive blog Breitbart Unmasked (BU). Interestingly, that was one day after I broke the Bill Pryor gay-porn story. "RogerS" commented about a possible lawsuit that Kimberlin was planning against a number of individuals connected to the Breitbart Network.

Another commenter on the same post replied: "RogerS is one of two very cool people in Alabama . . . Everyone should read his latest: A very "stiff" portrayal of a federal judge." That's the first sign I can find of connections forming between "RogerS," Roger Shuler, and the Bill Pryor story--and it came from a commenter at a liberal Web site.

So, RogerS grew from Breitbart Unmasked, and BU's editor at the time was . . . Matt Osborne. Let's consider a few of the questions that poses:

Ali Akbar on Grindr gay-sex app

(1) Is RogerS even a real person? Could he be a "false flag" that Osborne -- or someone connected to him -- created? After all, "Dry Alabama" proves Osborne has a taste for false-flag operations.

(2) Was RogerS created to antagonize Ali (Akbar) Alexander and his right-wing blogging loons and scare them into having me falsely arrested -- probably with the assistance of the Alabama State Bar?


Matt Osborne's in-home visit while I was in jail

Was Osborne's visit to our house, while I was locked up, an act of good faith, or one with ulterior motives?

Well, we know my arrest, on the surface, was driven by a bogus defamation lawsuit that Rob Riley and his lobbyist "gal pal" Liberty Duke filed against me. We know Rob Riley and Doug Jones have been aligned in the legal tribe for more than 10 years. And we know Matt Osborne has been aligned with Doug Jones at least since 2017.

Could Osborne's alliance with Jones date back to 2013 and beyond? Could Jones, or someone tied to him, have directed Osborne to go to our house as a ruse, designed to assist Rob Riley's arrest scheme -- and perhaps stand up for Bill Pryor's "honor"?

Why would someone want to have access to our house just days after my arrest? I can think of all kinds of reasons, most of them dark and disturbing. I like to think that Matt Osborne would not go along with such a scheme, but we now know he engaged in deceptive election practices on Doug Jones' behalf, so what would keep Osborne from entering our home under false pretenses -- designed to assist Doug Jones and his lawyer pal, Rob Riley, perhaps in their shared desire to abuse the reporter who outed Bill Pryor as a closeted gay? By the way, Jones long has professed his undying respect for Pryor.

Matt Osborne has proven he engaged in dishonest activities that deceived Alabama voters -- a false-flag scheme to benefit Doug Jones. I see no reason why he would not engage in a false flag directed at Carol and me.

Doug Jones was required under ethics rules to return unearned portion of $300,000 he charged Siegelman, but it appears Jones ignored rule and kept the cash

Doug Jones, with Don Siegelman and family.

When a lawyer withdraws from a case, Alabama ethics rules require him to return fees that were paid in advance and not earned. Evidence suggests U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) owes former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman a hefty sum in unearned fees from Jones' short-circuited criminal defense in the case that caused Siegelman to spend roughly six years in federal prisons.

Jones charged Siegelman $300,000 in advance fees, withdrew from the case before trial (because of a scheduling conflict on Jones' end), and our research indicates Jones never returned a dime of the money -- much of which apparently was unearned. That signals Alabama's newly elected senator, supposedly a "Great White Hope" for Democrats in the South, is a glorified thief. Our investigation shows Jones essentially stole money from Siegelman, while doing almost nothing to earn it.

The theft of so much money likely crippled Siegelman's efforts to obtain legal counsel, especially when former U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller (since kicked off the bench for wife beating) ensured a crooked trial and unjust conviction -- forcing Siegelman to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on appeals that should not have been necessary.

No wonder Jones has refused to answer questions from us about his handling of the Siegelman case. Who benefited most from the convictions of Siegelman and co-defendant Richard Scrushy? That would be then-Governor Bob Riley, who was assured a second term when Siegelman went to prison, via underhanded actions of Riley benefactors, such as GOP felon Jack Abramoff and the Mississippi Choctaw gaming operations.

That points to Jones' alliance with Rob Riley (Bob Riley's son) in a lawsuit against Scrushy and HealthSouth, which generated $51 million in attorney fees. Jones' share of those fees reportedly helped bankroll his Senate run, and multiple news sites have reported that an operative close to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (who is close to Karl Rove, who is close to the Rileys) helped spread stories about sex-related misconduct regarding Jones' general-election opponent, Republican Roy Moore.

Is there any doubt Doug Jones owes Don Siegelman a lot of money? Well, this is from Rule 1.5 of the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct:

Terms of Payment

A lawyer may require advance payment of a fee, but is obliged to return any unearned portion. See Rule 1.16(d).

That seems simple enough; Jones was obligated to return any unearned portion of $300,000. But Jones seems to get a case of lockjaw when asked about the Siegelman representation. Did Jones return unearned portions of the fee? How much was that? Can Jones produce time sheets that show how much time he spent on the Siegelman case -- and at what hourly fee?

When we presented the opportunity to answer such questions, Jones was less-than-forthcoming. Here is his response, and a video of the full discussion is embedded at the end of this post, along with a video about his cozy relationship with right-wing thugs Rob Riley and Paul Bryant Jr.:

Asked about charging Don Siegelman $300,000 for a criminal defense in which he bailed out before trial -- and apparently did not return one dime of the money -- Jones responded:

Jones: I'm not going to comment one way or another on any of those matters.

LS: You're not going to comment with me on any matters.

Jones: Correct.

I encourage you to read Jones comments above, and listen to his tone in the video below, and see if you think that's the voice of an honest man. It sure isn't, to me. That's especially so when we have a decent record of what Jones did on the Siegelman case. It comes from Jones' 2007 testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.  Here are the sections from the 15-page document that give an idea of the "work" Jones did on the case:

From page 6 -- "My partner, Jack Drake, and I traveled to Montgomery in the spring of 2003 and met in the Attorney General’s office with Attorney General Pryor, one of his assistants, Ms. Weller,  and Mr. Scott. Again, this was a courtesy meeting and very little substance was discussed."

From page 7 -- "For the next year, the investigation continued. During this time we were attempting to do our own work, learn the facts and to keep up as to where we thought the investigation was headed. We had little contact with prosecutors in Montgomery during this time and my friend Bill Pryor leaves office in February following his appointment to the Court of Appeals." ("My friend Bill Pryor?" Cough . . . cough . . . Jones is not aware that Pryor was No. 1 on the hit parade of thugs who helped railroad Siegelman? Unreal.)

From page 8 -- "Other than an initial contact with the Government to make sure that they were not going to seek arrest and perp walk the Governor, I had nothing to do with the defense of the Birmingham case (involving Dr. Phillip Bobo)."

From page 8 -- "The matters in Montgomery were a different matter, and during the summer of 2004, we learned that a new team from the U.S. Attorney’s office was now in place to handle the Siegelman investigation and for the first time the Government was calling us with a request to discuss the case. There was also some sense of urgency because it was believed that the statute of limitations was about to run on a matter involving Richard Scrushy and Healthsouth, an issue which was being brought up for the first time.

"In early July 2004, my partner, Jack Drake, and I, along with another Siegelman attorney, Bobby Segall, met with the prosecutors to discuss the case. Included in the meeting was John Gibbs from the Attorney General’s office, Louis Franklin, the Criminal Chief in the U.S. Attorney’s office who was now, after Ms. Weller left the office, the Acting U.S. Attorney in the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Feaga . . . "

From page 11 -- "As the 30 day period (that extended the statute of limitations) was about to expire I had telephone discussions with the Assistant U.S. Attorneys. I can’t recall all of the specifics, but I know that we were asked to extend the statute of limitations for another 30 day period. I responded that Governor Siegelman would not do that, that the investigation had dragged out long enough, that the evidence was not going to get any better, that Nick Bailey’s credibility was not going to get any better and that it was time, as we say down South, for the prosecution to fish or cut bait. I was told that despite earlier concerns, the lawyers in Washington did not believe there was a statute of limitations problem, but that in any event they would make a decision within the month."

From page 11 -- "A month came and went. I started to call the U.S. Attorney’s office, but could not get any response. Two months, then three months went by with no substantive conversations with prosecutors. However, in October of 2004, a day or two after the trial started in Birmingham, the Government moved to dismiss all charges against Governor Siegelman after the Court made an adverse evidentiary ruling. . . ."

From page 12 -- "It was just about a month later, in late November or December, 2004, that my partner and I were able to have the first substantive conversation with prosecutors about the Montgomery investigation since our meeting in Montgomery in July. It was on a phone call that Assistant U.S. Attorney Feaga first apologized for not giving us a definitive answer any earlier as he told us he would do back in the summer. “But,” he said “we had a meeting in Washington and we were told to go back and look at everything again from top to bottom.”

From page 13 -- "In fact, as we continued to press for meetings in an attempt to dissuade prosecutors from bringing charges, we were told that any meetings would have to take place in Washington because Mr. [Noel] Hillman’s schedule did not allow time for travel to Montgomery. That summer, the summer of 2005, at least two meetings were held in Washington, D.C., at the Department of Justice. Because of a trial and other scheduling conflicts, I did not attend either of those meetings."

From page 13 -- "Some on our team, however, remained optimistic that the door was still open for us to convince prosecutors to close the investigation without charges and we felt it our duty to our client to keeping trying. So we pressed on with additional discussions in Montgomery as late as September and October.

From page 14 -- "I do not believe that discussions that took place over a series of months while sitting on a sealed indictment were in good faith. There is simply no way in my view that the Government would seek the dismissal of a sealed grand jury indictment. When a superseding indictment was finally returned and made public in October, 2005, it simply confirmed that we had not only been wasting our time . . . "

From page 14 -- "Because of a trial conflict in the spring of 2006, and the Governor’s insistence on a speedy trial before the June 2006 primary, I had no real choice but to withdraw as lead counsel. However, facing incredible challenges in sifting through mountains of discovery in a short period of time . . . "

What does this tell us? We learn that Jones engaged in at least two meetings with prosecutors -- the first with those from the state, the second with feds. Jones did not participate in two meetings that took place in Washington, D.C. Jones describes a series of phone conversations with prosecutors over a period of months, but indicates most did not produce substantive information. Jones says members of his team pressed for additional discussions in Montgomery, as late as September of October 2005, but gives no indication that such discussions actually took place. Jones eventually concludes that he and his staff had been "wasting our time" in discussions with the feds. After stating he withdrew from the case, Jones says Siegelman's new lawyers faced "mountains of discovery" to sift through -- suggesting Jones and his team did not do much discovery work.

For now, we can only guess at how much time Jones spent on these matters. But let's say the two meetings with prosecutors took 10 hours each, including travel time. It sounds like none of the phone conversations took very long, although there might have been quite a few calls, so let's give them a total of 10 hours. Jones says nothing about preparing motions or similar documents, but we'll give him credit for 10 hours of miscellaneous paper shuffling. It's not clear if anyone from Jones' staff attended the meetings in Washington, D.C., but we will assume at least one junior person did. That probably meant 12 hours of work time, plus travel and lodging, etc., so that could have gotten expensive.

Our calculations come to 42 hours, which likely is generous to Jones, plus travel and lodging expenses. Let's say Jones charged $400 an hour, which I would call an obscene figure for a lawyer of his limited skills, and a fair amount of work likely was done by subordinates who should charge less than that.

If my math is correct, 42 hours x $400 = $16,800. Travel and lodging might take the sum to about $20,000, and if you throw in a few mysterious charges that law firms are good at finding, you might reach a total of $25,000 -- and I believe that is being generous to Jones. I believe the true hours and fees involved in Jones' representation of Siegelman should be less than that. After all, Jones makes no mention of preparing motions or similar documents, he does not describe conducting legal research. His actions on Siegelman's behalf -- in Jones' own words -- were pretty darned limited.

Giving Jones the benefit of the doubt, we conclude that he used $25,000 of Siegelman's pre-paid fees -- meaning he owed the former governor a refund of about $275,000.

Could I be off in my calculations? Yes. What if Jones actually had legit expenses and fees of $100,000? I think that is very unlikely, but even if that is the case, he still owes Siegelman $200,000.

Doug Jones, as a U.S. senator, is subject to intense media scrutiny, and he should be asked about the fees he charged Don Siegelman -- and to produce documents that show he actually did $300,000 worth of work. If Jones can't produce such documents, it indicates he is more or less a thief, and he's not fit to serve in any public office.