Date: 1992-09-08
Speaker: JOSEPH LOWERY (republican)
Chamber: S

President. Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Atlanta. GA. DEAR JOE: I would like to reply to Steve Brights sixteen page letter opposing Ed Carnes for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. My copy of Steves letter did not arrive until ten days after it was dated. I had no way to reply earlier. First let me say that I sympathize with Steve for opposing anyone for a judgeship who favors capital punishment. Steve is a oneissue person because of the work he does. I also oppose the death penalty but view a potential judge on a much broader range of issues that are important to civil and human rights. Ed Carnes has an outstanding record on civil rights and this is the reason I support him so strongly. Id like to take a few pages and point some of this out to you and to also refute some of the more obvious omissions and misstatements in Steves letter. Steve lambasts Ed because he has participated. as an attorney in eight legal proceedings (now nine) that led to executions in Alabama. What Steve fails to mention is that Judge Frank Johnson. whom Steve so rightly praises. has voted as a judge on the Eleventh Circuit to uphold the death sentence in at least twelve legal proceedings in which defendants were executed. At least six of those twelve defendants whom Judge Johnson let be executed were African Americans. Using Steves "logic." Steve would have to say of Judge Johnson. as Steve has said of Ed: "he has brought about the deaths of six African Americans." Neither Judge Johnson. nor Ed. has acted out of racial prejudice. They both have followed the law. Steve compares Ed unfavorably to Judge Johnson. Everyone. including Steve himself. compares unfavorably to Judge Johnson who is one of the greatest jurists of our time. However. Steve neglected to tell you what Johnson himself thinks about Ed. Judge Johnson has sat on many of Eds cases. and he knows Eds true record better than Steve does. That is why Judge Johnson stated publicly in a Birmingham News articles that Ed was a "very good" choice for the position. (A .copy of that article is enclosed.) I hope that you will trust Judge Johnsons judgment. The American Bar Association agrees with Judge Johnsons opinion of Ed Carnes. Steve says that Ed is unqualified. What Steve did not tell you is that the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary. after conducting an exhaustive investigation into Ed and his record. unanimously rated Ed qualified. That fifteen member ABA committee is composed of attorneys from all over the country. There are no prosecutors on the committees. and several members are criminal defense attorneys. They talked to Steve Bright. Still. every single member of the ABA Committee rated Ed Carnes qualified for the judgeship. In discussing capital punishment in Alabama. Steve neglected to tell you about a case involving a client of his who was scheduled for execution at the time of Steves letter. and whose sentence has since been carried out. The man. whom Steve defended. was white. He hired two African American men to kill his wife. who was nine months pregnant. so he could marry another woman to whom he as secretly engaged. Both of the African American men who actually carried out the murder got life sentences in Alabama. Steves client. who is white. got a death sentence which was carried out last week. I am surprised Steve did not use that case to argue that Ed is prejudiced against whites. I can understand that Steve is upset because his client was executed. But it is simply unfair for Steve not to admit that Ed has by far the strongest record on civil rights. of any federal judicial nominee in this state in at least the past decade. For one thing. Ed is one of the few. if not the only. federal Judicial nominees in Alabama n the past decade who has never in his life belonged to a country club or other racially exclusive organization. Just last week the Senate confirmed the nomination of an Alabama judicial nominee who had been a member of the Montgomery Country Club and resigned only so he could be confirmed. Steve Bright did not utter one peep against that nominee from the Country Club set. Steve Bright cannot tell you the name of any other recent federal judicial nominee in Alabama who has prosecuted state judges for racist misconduct and gotten them thrown off the bench. as Ed has done. Steve cannot tell you the name of any other recent federal judicial nominee in Alabama who. as early as the 1970s. defended black public officials who were being sued by whites. as Ed did. Steve cannot tell you the name of any other recent federal judicial nominee who has gone to the United States Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent members of the Ku Klux Klan from discriminating against blacks. as Ed did. Steve cannot tell you the name of any other recent federal judicial nominee who has been joined by the SCLC in one of his efforts to fight racial discrimination. as Ed was. Ed has been successful in getting the Alabama Court of Criminal* Appeals to rule in two cases that white criminal defendants .cannot practice racial discrimination against African American members of the jury. Steve omitted these two important cases. Judge Frank Johnson is the epitome of a courageous jurist whose decisions on the bench have done much to advance the cause of civil rights. But. before he was first appointed to the federal district court bench Frank Johnson had no public record for civil rights. He was a prosecutor who had been active in Republican politics. Ed. too. is a prosecutor. but he has a stronger record on civil rights than Frank Johnson had when he was first appointed to the federal bench. What the two of them have in common is integrity and a devotion to the rule of law. That is why Judge Johnson has said that Ed Carnes is a "very good" choice for this judgeship. Steven says you should oppose Ed because he supported Bill Baxleys opponent in the Alabama gubernatorial race in 1986. The irony of Stevens argument is that Bill Baxley strongly supports Eds nomination. Bill recalls the hard work Ed did to ensure that the murder conviction of Klansman Robert Chambliss was upheld in the Birmingham Church bombing case. which involved the murder of four young African American girls. Bill also recalls that Ed assisted him in the mid 1970s in a legal action to prevent Alabama Power Company from importing South African coal. That legal action that Bill and Ed took so threatened the economy of South Africa that it was forced to change its laws involving use of indentured black labor. I invite you to call Bill Baxley (2059390995) about Ed. Steve lists the names of others he says would be better nominees. It is ironic that he includes Justice Oscar Adams in that list. because Justice Adams strongly supports Eds nomination. He has sat on a number of Eds cases. I Invite you to call Justice Adams (2053255086 or 2052424584) about Ed. Contrary to what Steve says. Ed has never blocked capital resource funds. The person who best knows Eds record in this regard Is former Governor Albert Brewer who headed the Alabama Bar task force that set up Alabamas resource center. He was also the first chairperson of Its Board of Directors and Is still on the Board. Governor Brewer has writs ten that Ed "participated actively in the establishment of the resource center." and that "many defendants were protected by Mr. Carnes concern for. and commitment to. fairness in the criminal justice system." The facts are that Ed Carnes drafted legislation to increase money paid to attorneys to represent indigent capital defendants. he wrote an official advisory opinion of the Attorney General which doubled the amount of money to be paid for outofcourt work in such cases. and he succeeded in having the Legislature appropriate thousands of dollars for use in paying litigation expenses of indigent defendants under capital sentences. Ed Carnes has done more than virtually any other attorney in Alabama to increase state funding for indigent capital defendants. Steve ignores the fact that. in case after case. Ed Carnes has been fair to defendants even when doing so angered district attorneys. In one case Ed went into the appellate courts and argued that a death sentence was unconstitutional and should be reversed. while the district attorney argued to the contrary. Ed won. and the appellate court reversed the death sentence. In another case Ed argued to the Alabama Supreme Court that trial judges should have authority to order district attorneys to open their files to capital defendants. The entire Alabama District Attorneys Association argued against Eds position. but he won. As a result. Alabama has one of the most liberal discovery rules in capital cases of any state in this country. Steve also chooses to ignore the fact that Ed Carnes has exposed attempts of district attorneys to hide evidence favorable to capital defendants. In at least two cases involving African Americans under sentence of death. Ed discovered and disclosed evidence favorable to them that the prosecutors had not divulged at trial. As as result of Eds efforts. and his integrity and sense of fairness. both those African American defendants won new trails. The lawyer for one of them has recently written that: "Ed Carnes could have pretended to overlook the evidence he found in the district attorneys file. He had no reason to doubt the defendants actual guilt. He could have justified it to himself. telling himself that the failure of this evidence to appear at trial was harmless error. By turning over the evidence he aroused considerable ire from the local district attorney. . . . If Ed had not confessed error in that case. there is no way that we possibly could have discovered the additional exculpatory evidence on our own. (The defendant] would not be alive today." It is disingenuous of Steve to cite The Atlanta Constitution editorial In support of his opinion about Ed. because Steve himself procured that editorial. and an op ed piece. and they simply repeat what Steve himself is saying.