By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on June 21, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
I will make this Op-Ed article plain and simple.
Transgender Americans are hated by the political oligarchy that runs Alabama – a state with a long, ugly, well-documented, and proud history of discriminating against blacks, women, LGBTQ Americans, and other marginalized groups, from the “cradle to the grave.”
Transgender Americans and their attorneys are the latest targets of an unrelenting campaign of political attacks by state officials and a small group of federal judges in Alabama.
Today, brave attorneys who litigate cases for transgender rights in federal court are being subjected to a form of judicial tyranny, bigotry, and hatred by four federal judges in Alabama that has not been seen in the state since the judicial lynching of the nine Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s. The reign of judicial terror that that has been directed at this group of attorneys is far greater than the racial hatred experienced by the attorneys for the Scottsboro Boys.
In the last two years, United States District Court Judges in Alabama -- Jeffery U. Beaverstock (Mobile), W. Keith Watkins (Montgomery), and R. David Proctor (Birmingham), and Liles C. Burke (Huntsville) -- have taken it upon themselves to: (a) crush the budding transgender movement in Alabama, (b) trash the legal rights of transgender citizens in the state, and (c) terrorize the attorneys who skillfully and aggressively represent transgender Americans in federal courts located in the state. I refer to these four judges as the "Gang of Four."
The Gang of Four's shameful judicial abuse of the targeted attorneys for LGBTQ Americans and their causes is discussed in detail in my June 8, 2024, Op-Ed article on this subject.
Judges Beaverstock, Watkins, and Proctor assigned the role of “executioner” to Judge Liles Burke, a right-wing, ultra-conservative Donald Trump-appointee who displays a fanatical hostility to members of the LGBTQ Bar in Alabama and around the country. Burke will decide what judicial sanctions, if any, are needed to drive the targeted LGBTQ attorneys out of Alabama. Burke will also determine the manner, means, and timing of his judicial "execution" of these attorneys.
Judge Burke is a bigger threat to the constitutional and civil rights of LGBTQ Americans than any bigot who wears a white robe and burns crosses in the dead of night. Burke's black robe projects to the public a presumption of legitimacy that bigots wearing white robes lack.
The venom that has spewed from recent Orders issued by the Gang of Four after they commenced a 2022 Star-Chamber "inquiry" into whether the targeted and railroaded attorneys for LGBTQ Americans engaged in impermissible “judge shopping” has reached toxic levels. This venom also threatens the basic civil and constitutional rights of all transgender people, other marginalized groups in Alabama, and their legal counsel.
On June 14, 2024, Judge Burke issued a 51-page Order that reeks of personal animosity toward four of the eleven attorneys for transgender litigants who have been targeted by the Gang of Four. Burke's Order evidences a form of heightened judicial bigotry that exceeds the level of hatred spewed by the most bigoted judge in the Scottsboro Boys case.
Judge Burke’s June 14th Order amounts to anti-transgender bigotry on steroids. Like the ringleader of a lynch mob, Burke is eager to sanction these four brave attorneys. In fact, he can barely contain himself in carrying out this judicial lynching.
At a time when the public’s confidence in the federal judiciary is at an all-time low, Judge Burke feels compelled and empowered to drag it all the way down to the gutter. While Burke has a First Amendment right to be a flaming bigot against LGBTQ Americans, he has absolutely NO right to use the imprimatur of the United States Judiciary to push his personal hatred of transgender Americans onto their attorneys or anyone else.
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Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace railed against federal judges. Wallace claimed that "thugs and federal judges have just about taken charge of this country.” The four-term governor believed that federal judges needed a “political barbed-wire enema." I am against barbed-wire enemas, political or otherwise. I think those judges who are bigots against marginalized Americans need to park their bigotry at the courthouse door.
Tolerating judicial bigotry is much easier than fighting it. I believe in confronting and fighting bigotry when it tramples the rights of marginalized Americans.
So you are saying that it was OK for Mr Carl Charles to lie under oath to the judges investigating the allegations of attorney misconduct and collusion about the phone call he made to Judge Myron Thompsons chambers during their judge shopping spree.
The rest of the world agrees with Judge Burke. The Cass Report has been absolutely devasting for the supporters of these sterilization drugs. Use of these experimental drugs on children is now banned in most of Europe. Recently even Chile has also banned their use. These lawyers engaged in unethical practices and should be disbarred.