Patrick Braxton. (Screengrab via YouTube).
The white mayor of a tiny Alabama town less than an hour from Selma has argued he should be immune from a civil rights lawsuit, claiming that holding a secret meeting to keep the city’s first-ever Black mayor and five Black city council members out of office is not a sufficiently clear violation of constitutional rights.
Patrick Braxton, along with James Ballard, Barbara Patrick, Janice Quarles, and Wanda Scott, sued the city of Newbern, Alabama and alleged that despite being legally entitled to take office, they were prevented from doing so when white residents “refused to accept” the results of a 2020 election. They argue that Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, Newbern’s white former mayor, conspired with his council, other government officials, and a local bank, to illegally install himself as mayor even after Braxton fairly and legally won the election.
Braxton now argues that he was elected mayor “by default,” and that as a result, he is the first Black mayor of Newbern in the town’s 165-year history.
The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2022 in Alabama state court claiming violation of federal civil rights law, violation of equal protection, and unlawful racial discrimination. In the complaint, they noted that 85 percent of the residents of Newbern are African American and that the city has had a majority Black population for over 50 years.
Newbern is governed by a mayor and five town council members, all of whom are elected on the fourth Thursday of August for four-year terms. According to the city’s municipal code, the mayor must notify the public of an upcoming election, and residents who have lived in Newbern for at least 90 days prior to the election may run for election.
According to Braxton’s complaint, “Newbern ha[d] not held an election in decades,” in 2020, and instead, the position of mayor was “‘inherited’ by a hand-picked successor,” who then in turn selected the five council members.
Per the filing:
Because the office of mayor was treated as a “hand me down” position and all prior mayors have been white residents, no black resident of Newbern has ever served as mayor prior to November 2020. Only one black person has ever been selected to service as a Town council member; in other words, the council still remains a majority white body.
Braxton said in April 2020, he informed Stokes that he intended to seek election as mayor, but that Stokes intentionally provided him with incorrect information as to how to qualify for the election and failed to notify the public about the election. Despite any attempts to deter him, Braxton said he followed the law and properly qualified as a candidate. Braxton said that Stokes “did not bother to qualify as a candidate” himself, even though he knew Braxton was planning to challenge him.
Braxton alleges that after he won the election, county probate Judge Arthur Crawford told him that since no one had qualified or been elected to town council positions, Braxton could appoint council members. Braxton said he “asked both Black and White residents to serve, but no White residents agreed to join his council.”
Braxton said that weeks after he was elected, Stokes and his council members held a secret meeting in which they adopted a special election ordinance; then, they set a special election for Oct. 6, 2020 at which they “effectively reappointed themselves,” and “unlawfully assumed their new terms.”
At the same time, a separate legal battle over Alabama’s illegally gerrymandered congressional districting map was heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. Ultimately, a sharply-divided Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s map on the basis that it likely violated the Voting Rights Act.
In their complaint over Braxton’s election, the plaintiffs alleged that a conspiracy to keep them out of office went beyond Heywood and his council. They also accused the People’s Bank of Greensboro and Lynn Theibe, the local postmaster, of furthering the plot. Braxton said that locks were changed at Town Hall until official documents were removed and secreted from him.
The defendants removed the case to federal court in the Southern District of Alabama in which U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose, a George W. Bush appointee, will preside. Prior to her appointment to the federal bench in 2000, DuBose served as chief counsel for then-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss Friday in which they assert they are entitled to qualified immunity, “because the law is not clearly established regarding the actions to be taken by officials in a town that has not ‘held an election in decades.””
Qualified immunity is a judge-created concept that shields federal and state officials from liability. It requires a plaintiff to show the right they were deprived of is either specifically codified by statute or was otherwise “clearly established” by case law at the time of the incident.
Stokes and the others argue that they should not face liability because no other case has set forth facts even “remotely close to the facts set forth in this case,” and that their conduct was not “so egregious that a constitutional right is clearly violated.” If the defendants prevail at the immunity phase of the case, the litigation will not progress to the point at which the plaintiffs would need to establish the facts they alleged in their complaint.
Further, the defendants argue that Braxton’s merely being Black is not sufficient to prove that he was discriminated against on the basis of his race.
Critics of qualified immunity are found all along the ideological spectrum. Regularly among them is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has often explained that the concept was initially meant to guard against abuses against formerly enslaved people in the post-Reconstruction era.
Counsel for the parties did not immediately respond to request for comment.
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