IN NEWS
2006-07 WINTER NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS

GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION
2007 WELTNER FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AWARD

Marvin H. Shoob and his federal court are models of
open government for Georgia

In upholding the rights of the powerless, ‘I’m 25 years
ahead of the Supreme Court,’ he says

A defender of the Guantanamo detainees warns, ‘The First Amendment and its
freedom of speech… are weak sisters if you have no right of habeas corpus’

By Tom Bennett

Atlanta, Jan. 27, 2007 – Marvin H. Shoob of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta "believes the government should not be held in awe." For him, the government "is just people, and people have faults."

That assessment of the 84-year-old senior judge’s approach to justice comes from no less of an authority than his daughter, Judge Wendy Shoob of Fulton County Superior Court, also located here in Atlanta.  The elder Shoob’s administration of the law, with his unremitting advocacy of the rights of the powerless, were celebrated as he became the sixth recipient of the annual Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award. It is presented by the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and honors the late Georgia chief justice.

As "the last lifeline of freedom," in reporter Robin H. McDonald’s words, for nearly 2000 Cuban detainees held here in 1980-85, Marvin H. Shoob upheld the right of habeas corpus. Yet this supposed permanent freedom of American life is strained and at risk as the U.S. Department of Defense confines suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I finally figured it out," Judge Shoob told the Weltner Award audience. "I’m 25 years ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court."  Every anonymous blogger on the Internet, a Libertarian candidate for lieutenant governor shut out of a Georgia Public Television debate, and the Marielito Cubans …all these found in Shoob a fierce affirmation of the freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

The essence of open government, meanwhile, is to work in the sunlight and open up government people’s faults, warts and all, to scrutiny. Shoob at 84 personifies this in Georgia.  "The Weltner Award is for people who want transparency in government, and he does, and he deserves it," said Deborah Ebel of the law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge LLP in Atlanta.

‘PLAINTIFF’S CASE CALLS FOR SOMEONE TO DO SOMETHING!’

A candor from the bench has marked his 26 years there, and Ebel recalled that in one of the Marielito cases she brought before him, mistreatment of the man had been severe. Judge Shoob suddenly exclaimed: "For God’s sake, plaintiff’s case calls for someone to do something!" 

"It’s an honor to receive this award," he told the Weltner Award audience of 170 persons, including many judges, at the JW Marriott Hotel in Atlanta.  "Charley (Weltner) was a longtime friend of our family," Judge Shoob said. "He was passionate. He reached out to people who reached out to him. His political career flamed, then ended on a decision he made. His greatest contribution was the influence he left. He taught us that every person can make a difference. Do the right thing, he said, and listen to your conscience."

The judge said all his accomplishments were "because of the support of my family." He recognized two former law clerks of his in the audience. "They now are very successful lawyers, making three times what I’m making," he said.

Judge Shoob deplored "the situation in this country… with our guys getting shot down in Iraq." However, he praised the American system, one he helped steady with his defense of constitutional freedoms.  "For well over 200 years, this country has muddled through one crisis after another, and we’ve done it without changing our form of government," Judge Shoob said. The nation made its transition in the White House from the disgraced Richard Nixon to his successor, Gerald R. Ford, "without a shot being fired, or a bayonet being unsheathed," he added.

After Charles L. Weltner’s 1966 resignation from Congress rather than sign a Georgia Democratic Party loyalty oath in support of segregationist governor-elect Lester Maddox, Weltner found a place to work when Shoob took him in tow and brought him into an Atlanta law firm.

"I know that my dad is so happy about what is happening tonight," said Susan Weltner Yow, a daughter of the former congressman and Georgia chief justice.

THE GUEST SPEAKER was John A. Chandler of Atlanta’s Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP. A generation ago, Judge Shoob reaffirmed habeas corpus in U.S. law in hearing the Marielitos cases. Now Atlanta’s Chandler and his wife Elizabeth V. Tanis, another partner in the firm, are among U.S. lawyers working pro bono and against great odds to defend the Guantanamo detainees in Cuba, fight to achieve fair trials for them, and attempt to end further erosion of habeas corpus.

Even a child in a Georgia high school might attest how the vague phrase is somehow immutable in the U.S. Constitution. Yet it is suspended in the stark Delta holding pens in Cuba.  "We call it a law-free zone, no law can touch it," Chandler said. A client of his from Yemen entered a Catch-22 of U.S. military adventurism is foreign lands.

The Yemeni man was among those from his nation who accepted offers to be paid to fight in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Later, as by his account he was working for a charity, the man was captured after the U.S. Department of Defense, now in Afghanistan seeking Osama bin-Laden, dropped leaflets from the air offering $5000 bounties for terrorists. The Yemini man finds himself now among 500 held in the pens of Guantanamo Bay. While there he has signed a "confession."

"Sen. John McCain, a very, very, very brave man, signed anti-American propaganda while he was being tortured in north Vietnam," John A. Chandler said. "So you can torture a man and make him sign anything."  He continued: "The essence of the rule of law is that if a man or woman is going to be held indefinitely, he or she needs to be taken before an independent jury… The attorney general of the United States testified last week that there is no right of habeas corpus in the Constitution of the United States.

"We are here at tonight’s Weltner dinner about the First Amendment and its freedom of speech. Those parts of the law are weak sisters if you have no right of habeas corpus."

SIXTH WELTNER BANQUET – FOR THE RECORD

Bruce P. Brown was chairman of the Weltner planning committee this year. He is a partner in the Atlanta office of the McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP law firm and a former law clerk for Warren Burger, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Platinum sponsors were Alston & Bird LLP; Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Dow Lohnes PLLC; and McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.  The Gold sponsors were Arnall Golden Gregory LLP; CNN; and Kilpatrick Stockton LLP.

The Silver sponsors were AIG Agency Auto; Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP; Fulton County Daily Report; Georgia Power; InterContinental Hotels Group; JM Family Enterprises, Inc.; King & Spalding LLP; Porsche Cars of North America; Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan LLP; and Troutman Sanders LLP.

Special guests this year included these from the federal bench: the honoree Judge Marvin Shoob and his wife Janice; Judge William S. Duffy and his wife Betsy; Judge Thomas W. Thrash and his wife Meg; Magistrate Judge Alan J. Baverman and his wife Elida; and Magistrate Judge C. Christopher Hagy and his wife Mary Stewart.

From the Georgia Supreme Court were: Former chief judge Norman Fletcher and his wife Dot.  And from the Georgia Court of Appeals: Chief Judge Anne Elizabeth Barnes and Judge John H. Ruffin Jr.

From the Fulton Superior Court: Judge T. Jackson Bedford and his wife Betty; Judge Stephanie Manis and her husband Robert; Judge Wendy Shoob and her husband Walter; and Magistrate Judge Jeanney Kutner.  Other special guests included State Representatives Stephanie Stuckey Benfield and Mary Margaret Oliver and Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and his wife Joan.

The Weltner Banquet has grown steadily into an annual Atlanta journalism and law event of importance, despite the first having been postponed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A later one was delayed by a snowstorm. No matter, there’s open government work to do. Hyde Post now has emceed six Weltner banquets with a calm demeanor belying the flurry of activity preceding each.

Dale Russell of WAGA-TV Fox 5’s investigative team creates video tributes to the Weltner honoree that guests become absorbed in; these videos are the highlight of each banquet before the honoree’s own remarks. David Milliron guides seating and badging, then Tom Budlong and Debbie Skopczyinski take over and although Hollie Manheimer of Georgia First Amendment Foundation said an half before the banquet, "We’re in a meltdown," within a few minutes all was well.

The sixth banquet had the second highest gross income in its six-year history. It is an amount equal to the cost of one four-door luxury sedan parked in a Buckhead driveway. With this money, a non-profit educational foundation will operate another year in Georgia teaching that we have Open Records and Open Meetings laws.

Tom Bennett writes about access issues for Georgia FOI Access.