Law enforcement officer suggests Sue Bell Cobb apologize, ask for forgiveness
The chief deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is asking former Alabama Chief Justice and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Sue Bell Cobb for an apology. Randy Christian, chief deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, said Cobb should apologize in the wake of her hiring and defending a campaign staffer, Paul Littlejohn III who was arrested Friday for violating the state’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). “He was doing his job, plain and simple, and doing it well,” Christian said in a statement to AL.com. “How sad that a candidate for governor supports a convicted sex offender over sexual assault victims.” “She also apparently doesn’t support law enforcement doing the difficult job of ensuring through compliance of the sex offender registration law that no other victim comes in harm’s way. That is the sole reason for the law’s creation,” Christian continued. “It’s not just shameful, it’s disgusting desperation on her part. If I’m reading this right, she wanted us to just look the other way. If she has any integrity left, she will apologize to law enforcement, sexual assault victims and ask for forgiveness.” Littlejohn, is a former inmate at the Draper Correctional Facility in Elmore County where he spent 30 years following his 1984 conviction for three crimes: rape by forcible compulsion, sodomy I and robbery I. Court records indicate Littlejohn was convicted of raping a 20 year old female and sodomizing a 30 year old female. On Wednesday the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department was notified he was in violation of SORNA as he was working as a pastor at Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, which also runs a daycare and is near a school. As a registered sex offender, Littlejohn is prohibited from both living and working near an elementary school or daycare. Littlejohn failed to disclose this information to the sex offender registry. Violation of SORNA is considered a felony. Even after Littlejohn’s arrest, Cobb continued to defend him calling the arrest “politically motivated.” Cobb says the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is led by a Republican, and that the arrest was made because Republicans don’t want to face her in the general election.
DOJ announces investigation of Jefferson County Jail
The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday announced an investigation into the treatment of adolescent inmates at the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham, including if they were targets for physical and sexual assaults while being housed with adult inmates or kept in isolation for extended periods. The Department of Justice said investigators will assess whether juveniles are detained at the jail in conditions that pose a serious risk of harm to their physical and psychological well-being. Federal authorities said they received complaints alleging that juveniles were regularly housed with adult inmates where they were physically abused and propositioned for sex and that juveniles were improperly kept in solitary confinement or lockdown, sometimes for months at a time. “Isolation_particularly the prolonged and restrictive lockdown alleged in Jefferson County_can lead to paranoia, anxiety, depression and suicide, and exacerbate pre-existing psychological harms,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. Jefferson County Chief Deputy Sheriff Randy Christian disputed the accusations. “The only juvenile inmates we house have committed crimes so violent or heinous that the laws of the state of Alabama require they be charged as adults. If they would rob, rape or murder you, I would likely assume they would also lie to try and make it out of adult jail. It isn’t a place for the faint of heart but it is a place they are treated fairly. We certainly have no heartburn over proving that in court should we need to.” Inmates must be at least 16 to be placed in the county jail, Christian said. The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center in May of 2014 sent a letter urging DOJ to investigate conditions for juvenile detainees at the jail and praised the decision to open an investigation. “They were placed in situations where they were accused of crimes, have not been found guilty, but are housed in situations where they are constantly in fear of their physical safety as well as their sanity,” said Ebony Howard, SPLC senior staff attorney. “When they were offered support by the jail, it was in the form of being placed by themselves in a cell,” Howard said. The SPLC letter requesting an investigation said a 17 year-old had his throat cut by adult inmates at the jail. It also the second time in recent months that an Alabama correctional facility has come under federal scrutiny. The Department of Justice last week announced a settlement agreement with the state over conditions at Alabama’s only prison for women. Federal investigators last year accused the state of subjecting inmates at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women to an environment of sexual abuse and harassment. State and federal officials agreed to changes to the prison and filed a settlement agreement in federal court. “Our commitment to finding solutions to problems in Alabama’s troubled jails and prisons is ongoing,” U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance for the Northern District of Alabama said in a statement. Vance said, “the best solution is always a collaborative approach that encourages the state and counties to correct conditions that are constitutionally inadequate.” However, she said they will file legal action if necessary. The Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division is conducting the investigation. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
