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Group Urges Resignation of ‘Foreign Mud’ Judge

Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action

MICAH calls for the resignation of Judge James Lammey.

Another group is calling for the resignation of Judge James Lammey after The Commercial Appeal reported last week that he’d posted racist links on his Facebook page and the group says it’ll take their case to the Shelby County Commission.

Lammey posted a link from a Holocaust denier that called Muslim immigrants “foreign mud” and said that Jews “should get the fuck over the Holocaust.” After the story published, Latino Memphis and commissioner Tami Sawyer called for Lammey to resign, according to the CA.

The Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action (MICAH) also called this week for Lammey’s resignation. A chief concern for the group, which advocates for immigration equity (among other things), is that Lammey “requires defendants he suspects to be undocumented to contact immigration authorities as a condition of probation.”

Here’s a statement from MICAH:

“In a county that pledges not to collaborate with (U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement), will we stand by judges who turn our courtrooms into ICE offices?

“In a city struggling to heal the wounds of racism, will we consent to be represented by judges who propagate insidious stereotypes?
[pullquote-1]”In a city striving to respect the rights of all, will we affirm judges who — in violation of their oath of office — treat people differently based on how they look, or the ethnic origin of their names?”

The group will take their concerns to the county commission next week. While no discussion of Lammey is formally on the agenda for the commission’s Law Enforcement, Fire, Corrections, and Courts committee, MICAH urged its members to speak about the situation at the meeting.

“Although the commission cannot act to censor or recall Judge Lammey, we are free to speak (if we sign up via comment cards) and get our opinion on the record,” reads the Facebook post.

The group’s concerns may fall on attentive ears. Sawyer chairs the committee.

“Tragically, we have permitted these injustices; it must end now,” reads a statement from there group. “MICAH calls on our leaders to stand against prejudice and for equal protection under the law. We demand the swift resignation — or, if need be removal — of Judge Lammey, for the sake of the people’s faith in an unbiased, un-bigoted, and un-compromised system of justice.”

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

County Commission Backs Censure of Judge Lammey

In a dramatic morning session, the Shelby County Commission on Wednesday voted 7-2 “in support of the public censure” of Criminal Court Judge James Lammey.

The move, a response to well-publicized Facebook posts by Lammey considered potentially anti-Semitic and racist and to courtroom actions and attitudes of his widely regarded as prejudicial to minorities, came via an add-on resolution from Democratic Commissioner Tami Sawyer.

Several representatives of established civic associations and religious and ethnic groups — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Hispanic — spoke in support of the resolution, as did most of the Commissioners on hand for the body’s committee sessions.

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Dr. Nabil Bayakly, chairman of Muslims in Memphis, speaks for Sawyer resolution.

Speaking strongly on behalf of the resolution, Republican Commission and Commission vice chair Mark Billingsley made a point of emphasizing that the resolution should be regarded not as “political” or as either Dermocratic or Republican but as a generalized and necessary statement by the Commission as a whole.

Billingsley went on to successfully advocate for several
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Commissioner Sawyer

 amendments strengthening the tone of the resolution.

Two Republican Commissioners, Amber Mills and Brandon Morrison, would nevertheless end up abstaining from the vote — Mills on the ground that the Commission had not yet heard directly from Lammey, Morrison warning of entering upon a “slippery slope” and contending that the Commission as a legislative body should defer on judgmental matters to specifically judicial authorities; she recommended the state Board of Judicial Conduct.

Sawyer, who insisted on a Commission vote, would respond that the Commission could afterward ask its staff to contact the Board of Judicial Conduct for further action. She was clearly infuriated by Mills’ remarks regarding Lammey’s “side of the matter” and indicated she was put off as well by a suggestion from Billingsley that Lammey be invited to respond, either in person or in writing, at the Commission’s next regular public meeting on Monday.

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Billingsley speaking for resolution

In an extended and emotional speech, Sawyer recounted an online communication she personally had received two weeks earlier from a declared white supremacist, who vilified her, threatened her with physical harm, and announced his intention to make sure her body ended up in the Mississippi River. Comparing that communication with Lammey’s various online postings — which included links to Holocaust deniers and overt racists — and what she described as his overly punitive treatment of immigrants in court, Sawyer said if someone had dared to ask her to consider the “other side” of her would-be attacker’s point of view or had told her the Commission, similarly, would be interested in hearing out Lammey’s, “I would be offended.”

Sawyer received applause from attendees, as did Commissioner Eddie Jones subsequently as he choked up while describing being addressed by a white National Guardsman on the night of Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968. The man said “Little nigger boy, where are you going?” and said Jones, “I never forgot those words.”

Voting for the resolution were Republicans Billingsley and David Bradford, and Democrats Sawyer, Edmund Ford, Reginald Milton, Eddie Jones, and Michael Whaley.

A letter to Lammey announcing the results of Wednesdays’s action and confirming the Commission’s wish to give him opportunity to respond on Monday, when the action is scheduled to become official, was dispatched by email to the Judge. It can be seen below:

[pdf-1]