Judge Indicates He May Decide In Favor of Atlanta Educators

First:  Were APS educators threatened with loss of employment if they didn’t cooperate with the state’s cheating investigation led by Mike Bowers, Bob Wilson and Richard Hyde?

Second:  Were they also threatened to be referred to the Professional Standards Commission and possibly lose their teaching licenses if they took the Fifth Amendment?

In his closing argument, defense attorney Brian Steel told Judge Baxter that for nearly two years he’d been raising those very issues as it relates to his client, Dr. Luscious Brown.

“I raised [the fact that] Mr. Bowers and Mr. Wilson have no rights to subpoena people to their law offices. I raised [the fact that] that Mr. Bowers and Mr. Wilson are compelling statements without any Garrity warnings.”

“Garrity warnings” refers to Garrity v. New Jersey, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects public employees like school teachers and police officers who are required to cooperate with investigators or face the loss of their jobs. However, those statements cannot be used against them in a criminal case. [more on the Garrity warning can be found at the end of this story]

Steel says that’s what his client and the other educators were up against.

“And if I don’t speak, I get fired. If I do speak, they tell me I’m implicating myself because they’ve already told me I lied to the GBI.   So if I say the same thing under oath in their office that they require me to attend to, now I’ve committed perjury. They’ve already made a decision that my client has lied.  It’s a perjury trap. This is outrageous conduct by the prosecution in Fulton County Superior Court and they don’t care.”

But in his argument, special assistant district attorney John Floyd told Judge Baxter Garrity did not apply because none of the compelled statements resulted in a confession or anything else.

“What’s our evidence now? You just heard from Ms. Mazyck several critical things. You heard … that there was a consistent policy within APS. You’ve heard the evidence nobody ever got terminated for bringing a lawyer to an interview. Nobody ever got terminated for invoking the Fifth Amendment. It never happened.”

Ms. Mazyck is former APS General Counsel Veleter Mazyck.  The prosecution flew her in to testify as to what legal advice the district gave employees regarding the cheating investigation.

In an exchange with Floyd during his argument, Judge Jerry Baxter indicated it appeared the Garrity issue was never considered by the state investigators.

“I think the fastest way they thought to get to the truth would be just to go at it like a bull in a china shop, so that’s the way it appears to me.”

Before leaving the bench, Judge Baxter told the prosecution and defense he would for now reserve making a ruling, but added, “I think you can sort of get where I’m headed.” 

Judge Baxter’s decision is not expected before Monday, June 24^th.

Note: in Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 497 (1967), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that threatening public employees with being fired if they don’t answer questions during an investigation – and then subsequently prosecuting them for their answers or their silence – violates both the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections against coerced statements.

The Garrity Warning is a statement that prosecutors and investigators are to give to public employees in these situations to alert them that they do have the right to remain silent, and that they cannot be subject to disciplinary action if they exercise this right. 

Judge Baxter’s statement strongly implies that he thinks the state investigators may have been doing exactly that as they interviewed the APS employees.