NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc
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NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. Report in Opposition to the Nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to be Attorney General of the United States January 9, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Interest of NAACP Legal Defense Fund ...................................................................... 4 LDF and Voting Rights ...…………………………………………………………… 4 LDF and Challenges to Segregation ………………………………………………. 5 The Civil Rights Moment in this Country ……...……………………………….. 5 Senator Sessions’ Record on Civil Rights and Racial Justice …..…………………….. 7 Voting Rights .………………………………………………………………………… 9 The Perry County and “Black Belt” Voting Prosecutions …………….. 11 Opposition to Equal Voting Rights as Alabama Attorney General …. 14 Senator Sessions’ Opposition to Equal Voting Rights ……………….... 15 Criminal Justice and Policing .……………………………………………….…… 17 Sentencing ….………….…………………………………………………..... 18 Juvenile Justice ……………….…………………………………………… 22 Chain Gangs in Alabama .…………….…………………………………… 23 Policing Reform .…………………………………………………………….. 25 Education ..………………………………………………………………………….. 27 Employment Discrimination and Consumer Protection …………………….. 30 Conclusion …..……………………………………………………………………………… 32 i I. INTRODUCTION The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which created the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ or the Department), the Attorney General has also had principal responsibility for enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws. The responsibility of the Attorney General in this regard may include challenging practices that violate the constitutional requirement of “equal protection under the laws,” and violations of federal statutes such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, or the Violence Against Women Act, among others. Because of this responsibility, the Attorney General must be a lawyer of distinction who is fully prepared to vigorously enforce our country’s civil rights laws. The public should have confidence that the Attorney General is unequivocally committed to principles of racial, ethnic, gender, religious, and sexual orientation equality, will protect the rights of disabled people, and will unreservedly and vigorously litigate cases in accordance with the equality provisions of the United States Constitution and our civil rights laws. Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) has been a lawyer for 44 years. Although he began in the private practice of law, the bulk of his career has been spent in public life. For nearly 40 years, Sessions has served as a United States Attorney, the Attorney General of Alabama, and a United States Senator representing the state of Alabama. During this period, he has amassed a voluminous record. That record, particularly given his public life in a state with a long and troubled history of racial discrimination, should reveal a clear commitment to the principles of racial equality and justice and support for the civil rights laws which, as Attorney General, he would be charged with upholding. But rather than demonstrate his fitness to become the chief enforcer of our nation’s civil rights laws, Sessions’ record reveals precisely the opposite. From his actions as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in the 1980s, to his actions as Attorney General of Alabama in the 1990s, to his twenty-year career as a United States Senator, Sessions’ record demonstrates hostility to principles of equality and justice, and to the core civil rights statutes and legal principles that as Attorney General he would be charged with enforcing. For this reason, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) strongly opposes the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions to serve as the 84th Attorney General of the United States. This report sets out the aspects of Senator Sessions’ 1 record with respect to civil rights and racial justice that we find most troubling and that we believe demonstrate his unfitness to serve as Attorney General. We do not reach this conclusion lightly. We feel compelled to present an accurate record of Sessions’ engagement with issues of racial justice and equality. Clarifying the record is particularly important because those who support Sessions’ confirmation have suggested that he has been a civil rights advocate. This is no doubt an attempt to rehabilitate Sessions from his failed judicial nomination in 1986, when a Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee rejected Sessions for a federal judgeship because of his anti-civil rights record as a prosecutor and because of racist statements and other racially insensitive and derogatory remarks that he made to colleagues.1 Suggesting now that Sessions is a champion of civil rights is a shockingly cynical and false manipulation of Sessions’ 40-year record. It disrespects the courage and difficult journey of the late Spencer Hogue, the late Albert Turner and his wife (still living) Evelyn Turner—known as the “Marion Three”—who Sessions unsuccessfully prosecuted in 1985, and the Black elderly voters throughout rural Perry County, Alabama who were intimidated and harassed by the FBI investigation and prosecution of Black voters there. It diminishes the work of LDF and other civil rights lawyers, including those at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice,2 who actually litigated voting rights and desegregation cases that Sessions lists on his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire as among the “most significant” cases that he “personally handled.”3 To leave unchallenged the narrative that Sessions is a civil rights advocate would require us to ignore that credible charges of selective prosecution based on race were lodged against him as a prosecutor.4 We would have to ignore his explicit and extreme denigration of civil rights organizations and lawyers who work for civil 1 See NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC., OVERVIEW OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS RECORD OF REPORTED ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE JEFF SESSIONS (Nov. 18, 2016), http://www.naacpldf.org/files/about-us/LDFSessionsCivilRightsOverview.pdf. 2 See Declaration of Theodore B. Shaw (Jan. 9, 2017) (attached as APPENDIX A). 3 J. Gerald Hebert, Joseph D. Rich, & William Yeomans, Jeff Sessions says he handled these civil rights cases. He barely touched them, THE WASHINGTON POST (Jan. 3, 2017), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jeff-sessions-says-he-handled-these-civil-rights-cases-he- barely-touched-them/2017/01/03/4ddfffa6-d0fa-11e6-a783- cd3fa950f2fd_story.html?utm_term=.f377ef124cc4; S. Comm. on the Judiciary, Questionnaire for Non-Judicial Nominees, Jefferson B. Sessions, 14-29, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Sessions%20SJC%20Questionnaire%20F.pdf. 4 Nomination of Jefferson B. Sessions III to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Alabama: Hearings before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 99th Cong. at 196-203 (1986) (statement of James Liebman, Assistant Professor of Law, Columbia University School of Law). 2 rights organizations when they have faced confirmation before the Senate.5 We cannot ignore these aspects of Sessions’ record. Nor can we ignore that Sessions has had numerous opportunities in his decades in public life to speak and act unequivocally in support of racial justice and civil rights in Alabama and in the United States Senate. The record shows that Sessions has not availed himself of these opportunities. To note two recent examples: amid controversy over the Confederate flag placed on public grounds, Sessions said calls to remove the flag were examples of “the left” trying to “delegitimize the fabulous accomplishments of our country.”6 And despite clear public evidence of voting discrimination in Alabama, including two decisions by federal courts in 2011 and 2015,7 Sessions has insisted that such discrimination does not exist.8 Since last February, Sessions has been a vocal supporter of President-elect Donald Trump. This is, of course, not in and of itself disqualifying. But when then- candidate Trump made disparaging remarks about racial minorities, mocked a disabled reporter, was caught on tape bragging about sexual assault, and stated that a federal judge of Mexican descent could not be impartial in presiding over a case in which Trump was a party, Sessions neither denounced nor distanced himself from these statements. For this reason alone, the public cannot have confidence that Sessions would vindicate the rights of racial minorities, women, the disabled, and others as Attorney General, or that he would exercise judgment independent of the President-elect when necessary. In sum, any fair and objective assessment of Sessions’ record demonstrates that he is neither qualified nor prepared to vigorously enforce the nation’s civil rights laws. 5 See Kyle Barry, Sessions Unchanged, MEDIUM (Dec. 21, 2016), https://medium.com/@NAACP_LDF/sessions-unchanged-the-same-hostility-toward-civil-rights- advocacy-that-cost-jeff-sessions-a-148e60821a15#.f3bs1svxn. 6 Lee Fang, Senator: Confederate Flag Removal an Attempt to ‘Delegitimize Fabulous Accomplishments,’ THE INTERCEPT (June 9, 2015), https://theintercept.com/2015/06/29/push-remove- confederate-flag/. 7 Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, 135 S.C.t 1257, 1267 (2015) (remanding