From left to right: Don Fletcher, Sherry Digmon, Cynthia Jackson and Ashley “Veronica” Fore.
School board politics can get ugly, but district attorney Stephen Billy took an employment dispute to the next level in Escambia County, Alabama. He used the power of his office to arrest anyone who opposed him in a personnel matter that had nothing to do with his office.
Four innocent people went to jail, including the co-owner of a local newspaper and one of her reporters. Now, the victims are fighting back with a lawsuit for violating their constitutional rights.
The drama started in the summer of 2023 when the Escambia County Board of Education received preliminary results of a state audit that reflected poorly on Superintendent Michelle McClung. Worried about the implications for McClung, who was entering the final year of her contract, her allies on the board sprung a surprise vote to renew her contract. A 4-3 majority rejected the renewal, with two members questioning the propriety of the surprise vote six months before the board was set to consider the contract.
That’s when Billy started showing an unusual interest in the case. He later disclosed that he had “both a legal and a personal conflict” that should have kept him on the sidelines. However, he sent the board a letter praising McClung. Then, when the board called a second vote on McClung’s contract, Billy attended in person and testified on her behalf.
Speaking as a concerned citizen would have been fine. But Billy went further. He waved a threatening letter at the Board and warned that voting against McClung was criminal. To make sure the board knew he was serious, Billy reminded them that he controlled grand juries.
Escambia County Sheriff Heath Jackson also got involved, warning that he would bring “wrath” upon McClung’s detractors. He said he would arrest them on a Friday afternoon so they could not bail out until Monday and would have to “eat his hotdogs” all weekend.
When the 4-3 majority on the board stood firm, Billy began filing bogus criminal charges. He accused board member Sherry Digmon, co-owner of the Atmore News, of using her office for personal gain and publishing grand jury information. Billy repeated the grand jury leak allegation against board member Cynthia Jackson and board payroll supervisor Ashley Fore.
Billy even indicted Atmore News reporter Don Fletcher for writing about his investigation into the board. The specific charge was leaking grand jury information in a news story on Oct. 25, 2023. Yet, nothing in the article came from a grand jury, and Alabama secrecy laws did not apply to any of the people Billy and Jackson targeted.
The retaliation came anyway. Jackson arrested all four of their political foes and held them in jail for hours. His deputies seized and searched through the three women’s cell phones. Digmon and Fore were “showered” and strip-searched. They all had their mugshots plastered on the news.
Billy recused himself from the prosecutions in February 2024, a week after arresting Sherry for a third time in four months. The state promptly tossed the cases once the Alabama Attorney General’s Office stepped in. The damage had been done.
Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents all four victims who sued on Nov. 21, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. The case raises concerns about the Fourth Amendment, but the complaint starts with the First Amendment. Any citizen — including school board members and journalists — should be able to criticize public officials without fear of retaliation.
Using police power to silence dissent is especially heinous. Situations like the one in Escambia County are far too common.
Code enforcers towed William Fambrough’s van in East Cleveland, Ohio, after he campaigned against the mayor in 2022. The police arrested citizen journalist Justin Pulliam in Fort Bend, Texas, for taking photographs. And officers raided City Councilwoman Ruth Herbel’s home in Marion, Kansas.
None of these people did anything wrong. The government attacked them anyway to stifle their speech. This pattern must stop.
The Supreme Court recently affirmed that people punished for speaking up deserve their day in court to hold their abusers accountable.
