by Richard W. Millar, Jr.

Every so often I receive a “friend request” on Facebook from someone who is already a friend. I assume that they have been hacked and disregard the request. Usually, soon after the request, my “real” friend will post a warning that he or she has been hacked, validating my caution. As far as I can tell, my friends are all real in the sense that “John Smith” is really John Smith and not someone posing as him. Also, anyone hacking into my Facebook account is likely to be bored to death, but I digress.

I also don’t get messages from judges, but perhaps that is because I don’t practice in Birmingham, Alabama. If I did, I would be on the lookout for Linda Schneider, Camellia Williams, or Jennifer Foster, all of whom, it turns out, are noms de medias sociaux for the same person.

A judge.

In May of last year, the Judicial Inquiry Commission, which seems to be equivalent to our Commission on Judicial Performance, filed a complaint in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary against one Nakita Blocton, a Circuit Judge in the Tenth Judicial Circuit, Birmingham Division, Domestic Relations Division in Jefferson County, Alabama. It alleged, among other things, that Judge Blocton communicated on Facebook with litigants in pending cases.

A couple identified only as AS and VS were engaged in divorce proceedings. Presumably thinking he/she was getting the short end of the stick, “AS” filed a complaint against Judge Blocton and began publicly asking that the judge be removed from the bench, which engendered the following communications from the judge under one of her aliases:

“False Prophet How Much is Your White Judge Paying You.”
“Because you have prophesied when I did not send you, and because you caused my people to believe in a lie, you and your descendants will be punished.”

And, “THE DEVIL IS WHATCHING U, PAM, ANGELA AND THE PEOPLE BEHIND U/U PLY WIT GOD I PLY WIT THE DEVIL/LEAVE THOSE BLACK WOMEN DEMOCRATS ALONE OR THE DEVIL IS GOING TO GET U.”

Concurrently, she was alleged to be giving legal advice to AS’ adversary, “VS,” after the case had been assigned to another judge:

The only thing that can f*ck it up is if y’all let [Judge D] finish this rehearing she will enter an Order throwing them all under bus. The hearing must stop before [AS] can get in the record that she had that visitation. [Judge D] never reduced it to an Order her hands would be tied with [AS] still on the stand and you not testifying there is nothing to support giving [AS] custody as the record only shows she hasn’t done anything either Judge ordered.

Aside from pseudonymous Facebook communications, Judge Blocton was also accused of telephonic ex parte communications with lawyers such as telling one lawyer how to “fix her filing” and how she (Judge Blocton) would rule if a motion to stay was filed in her court.

After she got wind of the investigations against her, Judge Blocton ordered employees to provide her access to their cell phones so that information relevant to the Commission’s investigation could be deleted and she also demanded that they provide her with the private login information to their work computers.

The Court of the Judiciary also found that she made employees work unreasonable hours, including late nights and weekends, and made repeated threats to fire them “in an attempt to intimidate them.” She also referred to an employee as a “heifer,” and called one judge a “fat bitch” and another an “Uncle Tom.”

In December, the Court of the Judiciary unanimously concluded that she be immediately removed from office.

She failed to head Bob Dylan’s warning:
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen . . . don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin and there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’ for the loser now will be later to win . . . .

Richard W. Millar, Jr. is Of Counsel with the firm of FSG Lawyers PC in Irvine. He can be reached at rmillar@fsglawyers.com.