MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) – The next stop appears to be trial for the defamation lawsuit of a civil rights activist in Alabama who is suing the Selma Times-Journal.
On Feb. 12, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against the paper and Boone Newspapers, Inc., in their effort to oust the judge hearing the case of Faya Rose Toure, who alleges the Times-Journal incorrectly indicated that she removed Confederate flags from a cemetery and took down political signs.
Toure, the state’s first Black female judge, is seeking $1 million in punitive damages. The newspaper defendants claimed Judge Collins Pettaway, who had denied their motion for summary judgment, should be disqualified because he is her former law partner at Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Pettaway & Campbell.
“However, the Newspaper defendants do not cite any authority for the proposition that a judge must recuse himself in a case in which a former law partner is a party,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote.
“Instead, they merely assert that in this situation, the absence of impartiality ‘is true in most any case.’ Bald assertions without legal authority do not warrant mandamus relief.”
The defendants also argued to the Supreme Court that Judge Pettaway also once represented Toure and husband and state Sen. Hank Sanders in a lawsuit.
“However, the Newspaper defendants did not raise this issue in their motion for recusal,” Parker wrote. “Further, beyond mentioning this issue in their statement of facts, the Newspaper defendants do not develop this issue in their petition. They do not include it in their statement of reasons why the writ of mandamus should issue, and they do not cite any case for the proposition that a judge must recuse himself if he represented a party two decades earlier.”