Sunshine trial: Jury finds all 12 seats illegally filled by County Commission

Sunshine trial: Jury finds all 12 seats illegally filled by County Commission
By Jamie Satterfield (Contact)
Originally published 01:10 p.m., October 2, 2007
Updated 02:00 p.m., October 2, 2007

Jurors today awarded News Sentinel Editor Jack McElroy and nine citizens a sweeping victory after a three-week trial that put 12 Knox Countians in judgment of their government.

The jury ruled that Knox County commissioners violated the Tennessee Open Meetings Act in setting in secret a specially called Jan. 31 meeting to replace 12 term-limited officeholders.

The jury also opined the commission did nothing to rectify that violation.

Jurors determined that commissioners decided in secret who would win all 12 of the term-limited seats left vacant after a Jan. 12 state Supreme Court ruling.

In the run-up to the meeting at which those appointments were officially made the jury concluded that two appointees, Charles Bolus and Lee Tramel, won their seats not at the public portion of the Jan. 31 meeting but instead in the hallway during recesses.

Finally, the jury officially discredited testimony from Bolus. Bolus had testified that there was no plan for him to be sworn in early but instead he opted to do so on his own. Jurors ruled that at least two commissioners plotted to put Bolus in his commission seat early. Bolus would later prove a key tie-breaker in a hotly contested appointment

The Knox County Law Department had sought to convince jurors that even if violations of the law were made the Jan. 31 meeting fixed the problem.

Jurors rejected that argument.

It is now up to Chancellor Daryl R. Fansler to decide what penalties to level. The law imposes no criminal sanctions or financial penalties. Instead, Fansler could issue an injunction against commission and order the panel to make the appointments again.

What’s not clear is whether the term-limited commissioners would be restored to the panel to make those appoints or whether the remaining 11 members of the panel as it was constituted on Jan. 31 would make those selections.

The jurors began deliberating about 9 a.m. today, after receiving the case on Monday. They took a break about mid-morning and called for lunch to be brought in.

Attorneys for McElroy and the citizens had accused the commission of violating the Tennessee Open Meetings Act, which is commonly called the sunshine law, in the way it appointed the replacements.

In closing arguments, McElroy’s attorney, Richard Hollow, told jurors that a plot he termed “the (Commissioner Paul) Pinkston plan” combined with a power struggle between commission factions left the public out of the process to fill four countywide offices and eight commission seats rendered vacant.

“In its simplest sense, it is the exclusion of citizens from the process of government,” Hollow told jurors. “I call it the Pinkston plan. We’re going to do it, and we don’t need public input.”

Pinkston’s admitted insistence that fellow commissioners back the wishes of a particular district when that district is at issue combined with Commission Chairman Scott Moore’s setting of rules barring any public debate at the Jan. 31 meeting led to an appointment process illegal under the sunshine law, Hollow argued.

“By the rules of Knox County Commission promulgated by Commission Chairman Moore, we have effectively closed the door to citizen input,” Hollow said. “You were excluded. We were all excluded. Not ignored. I’m talking excluded. Here the rule was, ‘Thou shalt not talk.’”

When the “Pinkston plan” broke down in two commission districts, a power grab ensued, he said.

“That was a feeding frenzy brought about by the orgy of political power,” Hollow told jurors.

Knox County Law Director John Owings didn’t see it that way.

Owings told jurors that the historic appointment of a dozen positions at one time may have unveiled the ugliness that is politics, but it did not reveal political scofflaws.

“You’ve witnessed a number of political agendas,” Owings said. “Politics isn’t always a pretty thing. Legally, it doesn’t have to be. Mr. Hollow called it a political orgy. I would call it raw politics.”

The sunshine lawsuit trial yielded proof of commissioners talking outside the public purview, Owings conceded. But that doesn’t mean they broke the law, he said.

“You may find there were conversations among commissioners,” Owings told jurors. “You may find discussions among commissioners. Some commissioners lobbied other commissioners. But conversations and discussions may not be deliberations. You may find some commissioners came to the meeting with fixed opinions. Fixed opinions are not necessarily violations of the Open Meetings Act.”

As for the gentleman’s agreement pushed by Pinkston, Owings said it, too, was perfectly legal.

“Respect — R-E-S-P-E-C-T — for a fellow commissioner’s wishes is not a violation of the Open Meetings Act,” Owings argued.

The lack of public debate at the Jan. 31 meeting is not, Owings contended, proof of a violation of the law either.

“The Open Meetings Act does not guarantee all citizens the right to participate in the meetings themselves,” he said. “There is no requirement that members of the public body discuss a matter prior to a vote.”

Attorney Herbert S. Moncier, who represents the citizen plaintiffs, told jurors the public was not merely denied the chance to speak. They were robbed.

“It’s a fix,” he said. “It’s a set-up. It’s a robbery. … They stole your government.”

Moncier repeatedly deemed commission as suffering from a “cancer” that infected even those members who tried to serve honorably.

“You know, power, my friends, is a disease,” he said. “People who have got power crave more power.”

More details as they develop online and in Wednesday’s News Sentinel.

More details as they develop online and in Wednesday’s News Sentinel.

© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.