Birmingham Real-Time News
Former Alabama chief justice Sue Bell Cobb files complaint against Houston County DA
Former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb (File AP photo)
By Kent Faulk | kfaulk@al.com
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb last year successfully championed the parole of ReNaul Johnson, a man who had already served more than a decade of a 50-year sentence on charges related to an attack on a school principal, who was not hospitalized for her injuries.
It was a case that had first come to Cobb's attention while she was still on the state's criminal court of appeals. She says at the time she saw no reversible error but did have a concern about what she saw as Johnson's excessive, but legal, sentences.
After winning Johnson's parole in June, Cobb has now set her sights on the prosecutor who tried to keep him behind bars.
Cobb in early January filed a complaint with the Alabama State Bar's disciplinary committee stating that Houston County District Attorney Doug Valeska had given false statements, or was not properly prepared and relied on a faulty memory, to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.
AL.com obtained a copy of the letter purporting to be Cobb's letter to the Bar last week.
Cobb confirmed she had sent the letter.
A spokeswoman for the bar said they can't confirm or deny whether a complaint has been received.
Valeska had not responded to phone calls and emails from AL.com prior to publication of this story.
Houston County DA Doug Valeska (file)
According to court records Valeksa in January asked for and got an order from Houston County Circuit Judge Michael Conaway on Jan. 26 to have the VHS tapes held in evidence in the case by the county court clerk's office to be copied onto discs. The motion does not say why Valeska wanted the video released.
In her letter to the bar Cobb stated this was the first time in her 30-year legal career that she had filed a complaint against a lawyer, much less a district attorney.
At the June parole hearing, Cobb stated that after presenting evidence of Johnson's remorse, his model record as an inmate, and his plan to live with his nephew and wife, Valeska argued against his release. "I marveled at his (Valeska's) comments which at best, were exaggerated and possibly a result of a faulty memory, and, at worst and more likely, were simply false and he knew they were false false, which constituted a violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility," she states in her letter to the bar.
Valeska had stated to the parole board that the injuries to the principal were serious and that Johnson had slammed her head off the wall and into metal lockers, Cobb wrote. But the incident occurred outside a kindergarten classroom where there were no lockers, she stated.
Cobb explained in an email to AL.com that two years ago she agreed to represent Johnson pro bono, at his family's request. By that time Johnson had already served more than 10 years of his 50-year sentence.
Johnson had a criminal history involving several property offenses, Cobb wrote.
A jury in August 2004 found him guilty of second-degree assault and intimidating a witness related to the school incident, according to court records.
According to Cobb and court records, the incident began when his 5-year-old nephew had punched another child and was paddled by the principal at a Dothan elementary school.
During a discussion with the child's mother - Johnson's sister - the sister struck the principal, who later filed a complaint with police, according to a synopsis of the charges laid out in the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling.
The next day, Sept. 19, 2003, Johnson went to the school dressed as a woman to talk to the principal and introduced himself as Arial Adula. The principal refused to talk to him about his nephew because he wasn't the legal guardian, according to the appeals ruling. The principal reported Johnson then began threatening her that he and his family would come after her at her house and that he would "kick my ass" if she filed a warrant against him or his sister. The principal filed a harrassment complaint against Johnson on Sept. 26, 2003.
The principal would later testify that four days later, on Sept. 30, 2003,as she was entering the school Johnson grabbed her and got hold of her hair and jerked her head down and slapped her across the face, and said, "this will teach you to get out a warrant,".
Johnson denied at his trial that he had grabbed the principal's hair during the confrontation.
The principal testified that she suffered whiplash-like symptoms in her neck and shoulder as a result of Johnson's jerking her head and that her neck and shoulder "hurt a lot." Although she did not go to the hospital that day, the principal went to see her doctor the next day. A physical therapist testified that when he saw her, the principal had pain in her neck and shoulder and decreased movement in her neck. The principal underwent physical therapy sessions and eventually her injuries healed.
Cobb also writes in the complaint that Johnson's sister says Johnson's lawyer for the trial had told her at the time that he had been threatened "although he did not say by whom." That attorney has had his law license suspended, Cobb wrote. Efforts to reach the lawyer were unsuccessful.
Cobb said that what Johnson did wasn't right. "This was wrong on every level. Our school personnel should never have to worry about their safety while teaching our children," she stated. "Mr. Johnson knows that he should have been punished."
However, a 50-year sentence - 25 years for the second-degree assault and 25 years for intimidating a witness "was grossly excessive by anyone's standards," Cobb stated in the email to Al.com. The year before the offense, the Alabama Legislature had increased the penalty for striking a school official to a felony even if there was not serious physical injury, Cobb noted in her bar complaint.
In her complaint Cobb states that the trial judge was a former assistant prosecutor under Valeska. Valeska was first elected Houston County District Attorney in 1987 but is not seeking a sixth six-year term in this year's election.
Valeska opposed Johnson's parole twice, Cobb stated.
When asked why she filed the complaint against Valeska, Cobb responded " I believe the complaint speaks for itself."