$2 million verdict sought in DeKalb discrimination case

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A high-stakes discrimination case against DeKalb County went to the jury on Wednesday, but not before the judge denounced the county's conduct in the case as "shameful" and hinted that he might throw out a verdict that goes in the county's favor.

The six jurors – five whites and one black, five men and one woman – did not reach a verdict after two hours of deliberations. They will reconvene Thursday to try to decide whether the county shunted aside senior white workers and promoted black workers into their jobs.

During closing arguments, a lawyer for four former DeKalb County parks employees asked jurors to award his clients at least $2 million in damages because the county orchestrated a race-discrimination scheme that "crushed these people's careers."

"Don't let this go on," lead plaintiffs' lawyer Mike Bowers said. "Somebody needs to say ... you can't do what you've been doing out there. You hurt people."

But attorneys for the county and the four individual defendants, including former CEO Vernon Jones, countered that the plaintiffs in the long-running suit had failed to prove their case. Rob Remar, a lawyer representing DeKalb, said that what happened to the four former employees involved "petty workplace grievances," not constitutional violations.

One of Jones' lawyers, Sharon Morgan, said the former CEO wanted to hire employees based on their skills and abilities and did not lead a scheme to replace white employees with blacks. "Mr. Jones has told you clearly he is not a racist, and he is not," she said.

If the jury returns a verdict in the plaintiffs' favor, lawyers for the former parks employees will ask U.S. District Judge Bill Duffey to reimburse them for their legal fees, which are expected to exceed $2 million. DeKalb has already paid its lawyers more than $2.53 million over the six years of litigation in the case.

Bowers asked jurors to decide for themselves how much in punitive damages should be assessed against the four individual defendants: Jones, former parks director Marilyn Boyd Drew, Jones' former executive assistant Richard Stogner and the current chief of staff for the DeKalb County Commission, Morris Williams.

The plaintiffs' team this week accused the county of misconduct in its defense of the case, and on Wednesday Judge Duffey seemed to agree.

Before closing arguments Wednesday, in a hearing outside the presence of the jury, Duffey accused county officials of behavior that was "either terribly incompetent or terribly wrong."

The judge expressed frustration with the county's failure to turn over documents to the plaintiffs. He also said there is an ongoing investigation of defendant Drew, who is being accused of calling a county official and tipping him off about trial testimony. Duffey warned that, if the jury rules in favor of both the county and Drew, he may throw out those verdicts and allow plaintiffs to have a new trial against those two defendants.

During Wednesday's hearing, plaintiffs lawyer Chris Anulewicz told Duffey the county's conduct had been "shameful." To continue the trial without sanctioning DeKalb and Drew, the lawyer said, "would allow them to get away with their bad conduct."

Duffey quickly responded, "I think shameful is a fair characterization."

Duffey said he was particularly disturbed that two letters of reprimand given to Williams and Joe Stone, DeKalb's human resources director, were turned over to plaintiffs' lawyers last week -- a day after Bowers, in opening statements, told jurors the two men had not been punished for their behavior. This involved profane and racially charged comments Stone made to Williams during a phone conversation the two men did not know was being recorded.

Duffey said he could not understand how, after six years of litigation, new documents were "popping up" at trial.

Duffey said he was disappointed that a county government had exhibited such behavior. The judge said he had spent "two bad nights" wondering whether he was presiding over a trial in which one party "had not been given a fair shot."

During closing arguments, Remar asked jurors to focus on Herbert Lowe, the sole African-American plaintiff, who claims he was fired in retaliation for not digging up dirt on white parks employees.

Lowe is the "linchpin" of the plaintiffs' case and cannot be believed, Remar said. Lowe, former deputy director in the parks department, falsified his résumé and his county job application and was an unreliable employee who did shoddy work, Remar said.

The plaintiffs produced testimony involving allegations of discrimination in the police and fire departments, Remar acknowledged. But that has nothing to do with the former parks employees, he said.

"They're asking you to take your eyes away as to what happened to these plaintiffs," Remar said. "The evidence in this case shows there was no scheme."

Bowers conceded that Lowe "is no saint" but insisted Lowe was telling the truth about a scheme to push whites out of high-ranking parks positions. He then asked jurors to listen once again to the tape-recorded phone call between Williams and Stone in which Stone appears to tell Williams he was angry that the county's new fire chief wanted to promote four white firemen to the rank of battalion chief. "Now he got to cut that [expletive] out with Vernon," Stone said.

The statements were not made by a low-level employee but by the head of DeKalb's human resources department, Bowers said in disgust, adding that Stone should have been fired for making such statements. "There's an elephant in the room, right there," he said of the tape.