“It is my belief that there is no professional obligation that can be placed upon somebody that would outweigh a right guaranteed to you by the Constitution of the United States of America,” Albany lawyer Phil Cannon said.
Cannon has represented Anderson for five years, starting just a few weeks after a 2003 conversation the sheriff had with GBI agents that preceded his federal indictment for conspiracy and the revocation of his peace officer certification later that year.
The GBI had opened an investigation into allegations Anderson had fabricated a Dec. 7, 2002, incident report saying Tommy Leon Williams Jr. had collided with a deer in Baker County. Williams was accused of assaulting his ex-wife that day in Clearwater, Fla.
Cannon said Friday that his client initially cooperated with investigators, until they became “belligerent,” so he grew silent and said he wanted a lawyer.
Williams, his parents, Tommy Sr. and Juanita Williams of Albany and two cousins, Terry Williams and Jimmy Williams, all pleaded guilty in federal court later that year to conspiracy, but implicated Anderson and testified against him at his trial. Williams Sr. testified that Anderson demanded $1,000 to write the report.
“We proved at trial that these people who made the allegations, the Williamses, were a bunch of liars,” Cannon said.
Though investigators managed to get them to say Anderson was involved, Cannon was able to persuade a jury that his client had been fooled by the Williamses, who called him at 2 a.m. Dec. 7, 2002, about a wreck with a deer, he said.
When the sheriff arrived, Tommy Williams Jr.’s cousin, who looked like him, showed Anderson Williams’ Georgia driver’s license and a damaged truck, so Anderson wrote the report, Cannon said.
Tommy Williams Sr. got the cousin that evening to drive to Baker County, where they knew deer collisions were routine, he said. “They set the whole thing up,” Cannon said.
Despite his being exonerated at trial, the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council decided to revoke Anderson’s certification, and an administrative law judge upheld the revocation, finding Anderson “obstructed the truth and failed to perform his statutory duties, in violation of Georgia law.”
The violation, the judge specified, was Anderson’s “refusal to assist in a criminal investigation.”
But a Superior Court judge overturned the decision, saying POST could not revoke Anderson’s certification for invoking his constitutional right. POST appealed.
Last week, the Georgia Court of Appeals overturned the superior court decision, saying the right against self-incrimination cannot protect Anderson from an inquiry into his job performance or stop the state from taking measures “to recover existing evidence” from him.
“His own testimony shows that he blocked investigators from visiting the physical scene of the alleged accident,” the appeals court said.
Each appeal stays the POST Council’s revocation, and Anderson was re-elected in 2004. He said Thursday he planned to run again for sheriff in the rural county, southwest of Dougherty County.
Anderson has to March 16 to file a notice of intent with the Court of Appeals and to March 26 to notify the Georgia Supreme Court of his appeal.
At his Newton office Thursday, Baker’s first black sheriff said he’d spoken little with Cannon since learning of the court’s decision, but said he believed in his rights.
“It’s been the law as far as I can remember,” he said.
Cannon said a good-old-boy network had “been trying to get rid of Ike Anderson since the day he got elected,” and even managed to get POST law changed, requiring certification before a sheriff takes office, a requirement that affected Anderson directly.
The sheriff is paying Cannon from his own pocket, to the lawyer’s knowledge, though at about half his regular rate. “In effect, what he’s doing is covering my costs,” Cannon said.