An attorney for Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH group said Tuesday he did not fail to serve the governor and the state attorney general with a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s “stand your ground” law, which could be dismissed because there was no follow-through.
The lawyer, Robert Patillo, said he simply mailed copies of the November lawsuit to the wrong addresses.
The lawyer for the gun rights group GeorgiaCarry.com — which asked to intervene and asked that the suit be dismissed — responded in his own filing Tuesday that federal court rules do not allow defendants — in this case Gov. Nathan Deal and Attorney General Sam Olens — to be served with a lawsuit “by mail, certified or otherwise.” He said notice of a suit has to be delivered personally unless the defendants have agreed to waive that requirement.
Patillo said in an interview Monday he would refile the lawsuit if U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes grants GeorgiaCarry.com’s motion to dismiss it. Attorney John Monroe asked that the case be dismissed because Patillo had not served Deal and Olens within the 120 days allowed, which expired March 4.
Olens’ office said neither the AG nor the governor had been served with the lawsuit. It was filed Nov. 4, three days after Jackson held a news conference to announce the case.
Stand-your-ground laws have been the subject of national debate since neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in February 2012, though such statutes have been on the books in many states for many decades.
In Georgia, for example, the state Supreme Court endorsed the “defense of castle doctrine” as far back as 1898.
Jackson announced Nov. 1 that the suit in Georgia would be the first of many nationwide attacking stand-your-ground laws.
To make his point that the law was arbitrary, Jackson brought families affected by Georgia’s law to his press conference.
The man who killed James Christopher Johnson III on March 31, 2012, in Newnan claimed self-defense and was cleared. According to witnesses, a dispute started when Adam Lee Edmondson” made a rude gesture” to Johnson’s girlfriend. It resumed the next night at the same bar. After Johnson shoved Edmondson, Edmondson left the bar and came back with a gun.
Herman Smith, however, was sentenced to life in prison, despite his self-defense claim, for fatally shooting Cardarius Stegall in Carroll County in November 2012. Witnesses said Stegall, who was armed, had threatened to shoot several people at a party.
There has been little activity on the suit since it was filed.
On Monday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a story about the likelihood the lawsuit could be dismissed. Then Tuesday, Patillo filed documents explaining why the governor and the attorney general were not served.
Patillo said he mailed Deal’s copy of the complaint to the Governor’s Mansion rather than to his office at the Capitol. Olens’ copy was sent to the correct street address but the ZIP code was wrong.
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