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Here you will find, “Englished” and as streamlined as I dare get it, a condensation of the findings of fact (64-page pdf) submitted to the Mississippi Supreme Court by the complaint tribunal in In Re: Petition for Reinstatement of J. Keith Shelton. The Court instructed this tribunal — Beverley M. Franklin (presiding), Katherine S. Kerby, and William C. Cunningham, judges — to examine and make recommendations to it on Keith Shelton’s petition for reinstatement to the Mississippi Bar. The tribunal judges submitted their report on August 16, 2007, and the Mississippi Bar fully endorsed and forwarded it (two-page pdf) to the Supreme Court on December 11, 2007. Here I retain the tribunal’s section-headings to help you keep track of the convoluted saga, include all its salient findings, but simplify and tighten its language as much as possible.

N.B.: The legal and constitutional issues involved in the use of jail and the contempt power to aid plaintiffs collecting civil judgments — bizarre and serious though they may be — are outside the scope of these posts (though not necessarily outside the scope of the comment threads to develop from them).

Part 1, then, the

Events Leading Up to James E. Jennings Filing a Complaint against Judge Houston J. Patton with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance

In 1993, in Hinds County Court, James E. Jennings, Jr., sued his ex-wife, Stacy A. Kenney, for malicious prosecution. In October of that year, unbeknownst to Jennings, she sued him back in Hinds County Justice Court, claiming telephone harassment. Meanwhile, Kenney’s lawyer answered Jennings’ complaint but not his request for admissions; consequently, in late September of ‘93, Jennings won a summary judgment in Jennings v. Kenney of $35,000, entered by County Judge Houston J. Patton.

Though Jennings had had no notice of Kenney v. Jennings, in early February 1994, Justice Court Judge Clyde R. Chapman ordered him jailed until he posted a bond in that lawsuit, and Justice Court Judge Raymond Bates signed a warrant for his arrest. Nor did Jennings hear of these actions; his next news after winning the $35,000 judgment was a letter from the Hinds County Justice Court informing him that trial had been set in Kenney v. Jennings.

A call to the court clerk finally apprised him of his ex-wife’s civil case against him. But only when he arrived for the trial did he learn that he’d already been tried in absentia by Judge Bates and sentenced to jail for contempt of court for not complying with an agreement to pay a $200 cash appeal bond. Judge Bates refused to accept the fact that Jennings had already put up a bail bond, and in short order, he found himself at the Hinds County Penal Farm. He called his attorney, Ed Kerstine, who got Judge Patton to release him.

On March 3, Jennings received a copy of a motion, filed by Kenney’s new counsel, to set aside the $35,000 judgment. Hearing on the motion was set for two days from the postmarked date. At this hearing a prosecutor orally moved to revoke Jennings’ appeal bond, and though Jennings protested, Judge Patton refused to let him contact his attorney, so he had to represent himself. Patton revoked Jennings’ bond and sent him back to jail without allowing him to speak with a lawyer.

On March 8, Jennings, having tried but failed to reach Kerstine, called attorney Jacqueline Pierce and asked that she represent him in getting out jail, in his appeals in the case against Kenney, and in getting a continuance on the hearing set by Kenney’s counsel to set aside the $35,000 judgment.

After Pierce met with Jennings, she contacted his parents in Mendenhall, MS. They had a recording of the conversation between Jennings and Judge Bates in which Judge Bates accused him not complying with an agreement to pay a $200 cash bond and refused to hear that he’d put up a bail bond with a bonding company. Pierce believed that the appeal bond should suffice to stay action in the Justice Court (Jennings’ parents had put up a property bond for that purpose), and she was confident that the cancelled check that Jennings said he had would prove that he had posted the proper cash bond and therefore allow Judge Patton to release him again.

On March 9, two things happened: Justice Court Judge Wayne Herbert signed an order holding Jennings in the county jail pending Judge Chapman’s order to release him, and Pierce met with Judge Patton to discuss whether the bonds were sufficient to stay any actions in justice court. Judge Patton agreed to sign an order to release Jennings but told Pierce that she’d have to see Judge Chapman to get his consent. She drafted an order for Jennings’ release.

On March 11, at a hearing on the motion filed by Kenney’s attorney to withdraw the admissions, Pierce, unable to locate the civil file, told Judge Patton that she’d been retained by Jennings and offered her entry of appearance. When Patton refused on the grounds that Jennings already had a lawyer, Jennings drafted a handwritten letter discharging Kerstine (who wasn’t present, apparently never having received notice of the hearing). Pierce watched as Judge Patton conducted the hearing even though Jennings had no legal representative.

Sometime after the March 11 hearing, Pierce and Kerstine met to discuss filing a motion to set bail or a writ of habeas corpus. Pierce had previously drawn up such a motion and writ but hadn’t submitted them because Judge Patton had assured her he would release Jennings.

Between March 10 and 14, with all three justice court judges seemingly involved in Jennings’ detention, Pierce visited each to discuss the problem. Judge Patton had told her that Judge Chapman must consent to Jennings’ release, and Chapman said that if the file reflected that Jennings had made proper bond, he would let him out. Each time Pierce spoke to Patton about Jennings’ release, he assured her that he had no objection to it.

On March 14, Pierce and Kerstine examined the appeal file, found an order to release Jennings signed by Judge Henley, and showed a copy of it to Patton, who said to go ahead and release him. But when they got to the jail, an officer told them they’d have to get a release from justice court. So Kerstine did that. While the officer processed Jennings’ release, the two lawyers met at Kerstine’s office. Returning to the jail, they learned that the order to release had been rescinded. Jennings remained behind bars.

On the morning of March 15, Pierce spoke with Judge Patton in the foyer of the Hinds County courthouse, asking him what it would take to get Jennings out of jail. He replied, "Get the agreement [for Jennings to give up his $35,000 judgment] signed. " When Pierce told him that such an agreement would be illegal, Patton turned away from her and began speaking to someone else.

Pierce returned to her office where she prepared a handwritten memorandum (now Exhibit A of her affidavit [nine-page pdf]) on the encounter. It was clear to her that Jennings could either give up his $35,000 judgment or stay in jail. Kerstine drafted the agreement for Jennings to sign; at first he refused, but after much protest, he eventually signed it — and was rewarded with an immediate release from jail.

James Jennings had never been charged with or tried for any crime. He simply stayed in jail until he agreed to give up his $35,000. Believing that he had been deprived of due process in such a way as to give rise to claims under 42 USC §1983, on January 27, 1997, he filed a complaint with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance against Judge Houston Patton.

Where the story goes from there — that is, to herd James Jennings’ living nightmare toward that of Keith Shelton — is the subject of the next installment.

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