MOBILE, Ala.—In lower Alabama, four people with deep ties to their community—the co-owner of a small-town newspaper, her reporter, a school board member, and a school board employee—found themselves in jail, all facing the same unusual criminal charge: sharing grand jury secrets. Rather than let a political disagreement be settled at the ballot box, a district attorney and sheriff waged a campaign of retaliation resulting in the arrests. Now, the “Atmore Four” are suing with the Institute for Justice (IJ) over the violation of their constitutional rights.
“Americans must be able to participate in their government without fear that they’ll be labeled as political enemies, investigated, and punished for exposing corruption,” said IJ Attorney Jared McClain. “Sherry, Don, Cindy, and Ashley were just doing their jobs and what they knew was right. But because that got in the way of what the district attorney and sheriff wanted, they ended up in jail. We need the courts to hold government officials accountable when they abuse their power.”
Sherry Digmon is the co-owner of Atmore News, which covers a town of 13,000 nestled on the Alabama-Florida border. She also serves on the Escambia County School Board. Don Fletcher is the reporter for Atmore News. Cindy Jackson serves with Sherry on the board. And Ashley Fore is the payroll supervisor for the board. In a plot worthy of a John Grisham novel, last year they were all hauled into jail, in some cases strip searched, and had their mugshots aired on the local news. They were all charged with felonies that carried three-year prison sentences.
Behind the charges was a scheme by long-time Escambia County District Attorney Stephen Billy to strongarm the school board into renewing the contract of then-School Superintendent Michele McClung. Both Billy and Sheriff Heath Jackson injected themselves into the issue, speaking at local GOP meetings and school board meetings, sending a threatening letter to the board, and insisting that everyone support McClung or face their “wrath.” Billy insisted that opposing McClung was a criminal act, and he reminded the board that he controlled the county’s grand jury.
But Sherry, Cindy, and two other Board members refused to renew McClung’s contract, so both votes on the motion failed 4-3. True to his word, Sheriff Jackson got warrants to seize Sherry and Cindy’s cell phones. The controversy prompted Don to write a story for Atmore News about the seizures. The story mentioned a strange subpoena for payroll records that Billy had sent to the board and which the sheriff had served to Ashley personally. After the story was published, Ashley’s phone was seized without a warrant.
Billy would soon claim that the subpoena was a secret grand-jury document, but the document didn’t say so and there wasn’t even a grand jury empaneled. Unwittingly, the Atmore Four had fallen into Billy’s trap. He used the subpoena as a pretext to punish them and possibly force Sherry or Cindy off the board. Over a few hours on a Friday in October 2023, Sheriff Jackson’s men rounded up Sherry, Don, and Ashley and booked into the Escambia County Detention Center. Sherry and Ashley, despite having no criminal record, were strip searched.
Luckily, the three were able to post bonds after hours and narrowly avoided spending the weekend in jail. Cindy, who had recently undergone surgery, was arrested weeks later on the same charge.
For months, the Atmore Four lived with restrictions on their movements, accumulating attorney bills, and fears of ending up in prison. Billy would have Sherry arrested two more times and started impeachment proceedings against her. Then after the board ended the controversy by paying out the rest of McClung’s contract, Billy unexpectedly recused himself from the cases, finally admitting that he had both personal and professional conflicts. The Alabama Attorney General took over the investigation and dropped all charges with prejudice, meaning that they can never be brought again.
While the Atmore Four live with the trauma and expense of fighting bogus charges, there have been no repercussions for the DA or sheriff.
“Throughout this ordeal, and to this day, people ask me if we’re going to ‘let them get away with this,’” said Sherry. “Not only was the injustice blatantly evident to us, but it was evident to the general public as well. Don and I were doing our job as community newspaper reporters. I was upholding my oath as a school board member. Certainly nothing was unlawful about either act. However, when someone with a little power disagreed with us, they had us arrested. What an abuse of their oath. No, I don’t want to ‘let them get away with it.’ I don’t want anyone else to go through the seven months I went through until the charges were dropped. I look forward to justice being served in hopes we can keep something like this from happening to someone else.”
The Atmore Four were doing nothing more than their jobs and their civic duty. The U.S. Constitution protects Americans’ rights to speak their minds and to be free from unreasonable searches and arrests. The Four are suing Billy and Sheriff Jackson for violating their First and Fourth Amendment rights.
“In the United States, elected officials, citizens, and journalists must feel free to express differences of opinion, that’s what makes American democracy work,” said IJ Attorney Brian Morris. “But when those in power intimidate and retaliate against their opponents, that strikes at the core of the Constitution.”
The Institute for Justice is a nonprofit, public interest law firm that defends the First Amendment across the U.S. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Texas councilwoman who was arrested for her opposition to her city’s mayor. IJ is also suing on behalf of a Kansas councilwoman who faced a retaliatory investigation, a citizen journalist in Texas arrested for his reporting, and an Ohio man targeted by his city’s mayor and police chief.