An appellate court has empanelled a committee to investigate U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller on charges of beating his wife as a growing chorus — from right-wing senators to left-wing advocates — demands he resign from the Alabama bench.
Meanwhile Fuller, who reports to a Fulton County magistrate on his counseling regarding spousal battery and substance abuse Oct.14 as his plea deal dictates, hasn’t indicated he’ll step down. He was arrested on Aug. 11 in an Atlanta hotel room by police on misdemeanor battery charges.
“They’ve hired an investigator and I think he’ll begin by interviewing Judge Fuller,” said Fuller’s lawyer, Barry Ragsdale, of the committee. “I think one of the things they’ll look into are these allegations of prior abuse, which I think they will find are nonsense.”
Fuller has consistently disputed his wife's charges in a police report that he hit her, saying he only defended himself by throwing his wife to the ground. Earlier this month, he said he agreed to enter counseling programs in exchange for the charges being dismissed.
“It was in everyone’s best interests to put this incident behind us,” Fuller said in a statement.
That position prompted an Alabama Republican congresswoman to imply Fuller could face impeachment — only Congress can remove a federal judge — and two Alabama Republican senators to call for Fuller to resign.
An Alabama lawyer blames Fuller’s intransigence in part on Carmen Smith, the Fulton County solicitor, for not making an example out Fuller.
Donald Watkins, the lawyer, noted that seldom are federal judges held accountable for personal misbehavior and that an in-depth investigation by the solicitor — the county prosecutor for misdemeanors — would have uncovered a trove of Fuller's misdeeds.
Smith voiced irritation with the pressure from Watkins, a well-connected Democrat. Fuller, a Republican, presided over the 2006 corruption trial and conviction of Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman and disgraced entrepreneur Richard Scruchy, who Watkins had won an acquittal for in an earlier $2.7 billion accounting-fraud trial.
Her office is handling the Fuller case like any other case, Smith told The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Diversionary programs are standard for first-time offenders.
“It is just like any other Joe on the street,” Smith said Tuesday. “All cases are treated alike. He is not getting any special treatment.”
But that is exactly what ruffles Watkins, a veteran of both political theater and using the court of public opinion in legal battles. Fuller shouldn’t be treated like the ordinary man-on-the-street precisely because he is a powerful figure, he said. There were charges of violence in Fuller’s 2012 divorce but another judge sealed the proceedings, which concealed the specifics from the public, according to Watkins.
“When you are put on notice that there is a whole file of his past behavior and you don’t take the time to get the file to make an independent assessment – then you have failed,” Watkins said. “This is why prosecutors have prosecutorial discretion. If the situation justified it, they can develop evidence, not just do what a policy manual dictates.”
Ragsdale denied there were ever any allegations of domestic violence in Fuller’s previous marriage.
“That is just a lie,” he said. “It is what we call gossip.”
Regardless, Smith noted charges in a divorce don’t carry the weight of a legal conviction. As far as the legal system is concerned, Fuller is a first-time offender eligible for the diversion program, she said. It is up to Congress and the federal appellate court to decide whether he is fit for office.
“There is nothing of record to say he has committed any other offense — he is a first offender, period,” she said. “The federal judge part is up to another forum and another day on whether he remains in that seat. It has nothing to do with my case.”
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