Paradise is not Perfect

There have been quite a few controversies in Fannin County lately involving county and city government. The three county weekly newspapers have made for entertaining reading recently. That’s not usually the case unless you find stories about the 4-H club, high school sports and the level of the water in Lake Blue Ridge fascinating. The truth is that the news in Fannin County is usually boring which is okay by me—that’s one of the many reasons I moved here.

When something interesting happens around here, it’s like an elaborate game of Clue to find out what really happened. Each of the papers has its own spin and perspective so you have to read all three to if you want to come close to the full story. Even then you’re probably going to feel like you’re missing something most of the time.

The controversy that has attracted my attention the most lately involves the use of the N-word in open court by a superior court judge and an assistant district attorney.

The facts of exactly what occurred are in dispute. The News Observer has one slant, and the Fannin Focus has another. The Fannin Sentinel lies somewhere in between. Based on what has been reported in the papers and the transcript from the court reporter, there was a bond revocation hearing at the courthouse in Blue Ridge, and an African-American witness by the name of Alan Duray “Ray” Green was sitting in the hall waiting to be called by defense attorney George Weaver. Inside the courtroom Assistant District Attorney B. Morris Martin was addressing Superior Court Judge Roger Bradley. The rest of the story I will take from a very entertaining letter to the editor in The News Observer:

Assistant D.A.Martin, incredibly, was shaky on the names of the two witnesses who had been subpoenaed. One of them, he speculated was called “N----- Jim” but qualified his words by saying the name was “somewhat of a derogatory nickname.” Somewhat? Really? (And he didn’t even get the given name correct. So much for attention to detail. Jim? It was Ray.)

Then after a couple of Fannin County Sheriff’s investigators weighed in on names, batted around a few, adding to the name game, Assistant District Attorney Martin declares that the name is “Ray” and says, “All right, he’s known as N----- Ray.”

The confused Judge Bradley then chimes in wondering if this N----- Ray is kin to N----- Bob who lived right in back of the courthouse in 1974 and wondered aloud if this N----- Ray could be in the same family as N----- Bob.

Does Judge Bradley somehow think that some black families share the surname or given name of N-----? I don’t think they do, actually.

Perhaps attempting to bring sanity to the proceedings, defense attorney Weaver informs the judge that the man in question was sitting right out in the hall and that he had subpoenaed him and that his name was Ray Green.

At this point, maybe someone should have simply walked out in the hall and asked Mr. Green for his name—he probably could have shown them his license.

As you might expect, this story has had some legs. The court reporter was told to transcribe the proceedings, and the transcript was released to the public. Witnesses who were in the courtroom that day say the transcript does not accurately reflect what happened. The court reporter has retained an attorney to represent her. Despite several public record requests, the audio of the conversation has not been released, apparently in violation of the state’s public record law. Green has also retained an attorney and says he intends to sue but at this point I’m not sure who he intends to sue. The state Judicial Qualifications Commission is investigating the incident.

I’m looking forward to receiving the papers this week to see if there have been any further developments.

Am I surprised that the N-word is used in Fannin County? No. The truth is that I’ve heard it here more often and more openly than in Florida or at least in the parts of Florida where I lived and worked. What does surprise me is that the word would be used in open court by a judge and a district attorney in the presence of a court reporter. That shows an amazing lack of sophistication on the part of supposedly educated men. It’s particularly galling to me that the incident involved people in the legal profession. Sometimes you get the feel that large segments of the local population are still living in the early 1960s.

The core question that I’ve been wrestling with is whether this indicates that Fannin County as a whole is any more prejudiced than any other place in the country? After mulling it over for the last two weeks, I confess that I simply do not know the answer. It may well be that the percentage of prejudiced people here is pretty much the same as anywhere else with the only difference being that people around here are too ignorant or unsophisticated or naïve to know to disguise it. I suppose some would argue that makes this area worse than others though I tend to believe that concealed prejudice is a worse evil than open prejudice.

Regardless, I’m disappointed in Fannin County. I feel like I’ve encountered an imperfection in my little slice of country paradise.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not pretending to be perfect. Like anyone else, I have my innate prejudices though I like to think mine are more logical than most. I’m prejudiced against liberals, Ohio State fans, synchronized swimming in the Olympics and reality TV shows. All of these prejudices, I feel, can be defended.

As a trial attorney, I learned not to have high expectations for the human race regardless of race, color or ethnicity. I suppose I should be thankful that people are not perfect. I made a good living for 37 years based on that fact that people were careless, stupid and prejudiced. In a perfect world you would not need lawyers. So I guess the moral of this post is that even here in the blissful, quiet and placid mountains of North Georgia humanity remains true to form.