Shelby Commission to call for censure of judge who shared anti-immigrant Facebook posts
By Katherine Burgess
Memphis Commercial Appeal
May 9, 2019
Shelby County commissioners took steps Wednesday to call for censure of Criminal Court Judge Jim Lammey after The Commercial Appeal reported that he posted an articles on Facebook calling Muslim immigrants “foreign mud” and saying that Jews should "get the fuck over the Holocaust."
If approved Monday, the resolution will ask the Tennessee Board of Judicial Conduct to issue a letter finding judicial misconduct. A public censure also can include a requirement of corrective action. The resolution was sponsored by 10 of 13 commissioners.
“The County Commission has heard that the purported remarks by Judge Lammey about the Holocaust and immigrants have caused hundreds if not thousands of its constituents to question the fairness and impartiality of his judicial decisions in certain criminal matters and the body has been asked to support the efforts to have this honorable judge censured,” the resolution reads.
The judge has said he didn't agree with everything in the "foreign mud" article. He has denied racism or anti-Semitism and says he has the right to free speech. He also has argued that nothing he's shared on his Facebook page will diminish his ability to judge all cases fairly.
Several organizations have called for Lammey’s censure since The Commercial Appeal first reported on the anti-immigration articles, memes and conspiracy theories he shared on his personal Facebook page. Those organizations include the NAACP Memphis Branch, Memphis Islamic Center and Jewish Community Partners.
At a committee meeting Wednesday, commissioners and representatives of some of those organizations spoke passionately against hate speech, bigotry and the posts shared by Lammey.
The commission isn’t able to censure Lammey directly, but Commissioner Michael Whaley pointed out that it does have positional power.
“Nothing stops us from taking a stand and saying these comments are wrong,” Whaley said.
Nabil Bayakly, imam of Masjid Al-Muslimeen, told the commission that if he were in Lammey’s court, he would fear that the judgment would be biased.
“As we embrace the diversity that is present in this county, we cannot allow for anybody to show any kind of hatred towards any individuals, whether they are ethnic background or religious background or whatever race or whatever their origin was,” Bayakly said. “The judge, with all due respect to his judgment, he said some deplorable remarks.”
Some went further than calling for censure.
Rabbi Katie Bowman, who spoke on behalf of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, said “a line of professional responsibility has been crossed.”
“MICAH calls on our leaders to stand against prejudice for equal protection under the law, and we demand the swift resignation or if need be removal of Judge Lammey for the sake of people’s faith in an unbiased, unbigoted and uncompromised system of justice,” Bowman said.
Two commissioners abstained from voting on the resolution Wednesday: Amber Mills and Brandon Morrison. Mills said she wanted to hear Lammey’s side of the story, while Morrison said she didn’t believe it was the role of county government to police what officials say, although she agreed the comments were indefensible.
Morrison later asked if the commission could file a complaint and request an investigation into Lammey.
Vice chair Mark Billingsley said that while he didn’t think it was the commission’s responsibility to solicit a response from Lammey, he would ask that Lammey be invited to speak to the commission on Monday anyway or send a response in writing.
“A lot of people have been hurt by this,” Billingsley said. “I think the hate speech has got to stop.”
Commissioner Tami Sawyer strongly opposed the idea of asking for the opinion of “the other side,” pointing to how she recently faced threats, including threats of lynching.
“Had I come before this body and testified to the emotional and mental impact of that and someone dared to ask me the other side’s position, I would be offended,” Sawyer said. “I wasn’t going to bring my personal stuff into this, but the last two things I heard don’t give me faith in this body to stand up for people of color, for people whose religion is in the minority in this country, for immigrants.”
Commissioner Eddie Jones Jr. said there’s a reason the African American commissioners cared so deeply about the issue: They have seen bigotry over and over again throughout their lifetimes.
“If you’ve never experienced it, then it is very difficult to understand the passion within us when we’ve had to live with this our entire life,” Jones said.
He brought some in the room to tears when he shared a story of how, as a 9-year-old boy, his mother sent him to the store on the same day that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
As a 9-year-old, he was stopped by a white, armed National Guardsman, Jones said.
Jones said he never forgot the words the guardsman said to him: “He said, ‘Little nigger boy, where you going?’”
“When you are an elected official and you disrespect the oath that you took, as long as I sit here and have the power to speak out, I’m going to do that," Jones said.
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