Jay Mitchell’s Anti-Cop Opinion Disqualifies Him From Being State Attorney General

Guest Opinion by John C. White

Our law enforcement personnel face threats from all sides.  I saw this firsthand both as police officer starting in 1973, ultimately retiring as the Chief of Police for Dothan, Alabama, and as a lawyer currently in private practice representing today’s first responders. It isn’t just threats from criminals on the street.  Law enforcement also faces a radical left that is trying to defund our police and impose personal liability on officers for their actions in the line of duty, threatening personal bankruptcy to force compliance with the Left’s demands.  

Thankfully, for the time that I served as Dothan’s Chief of Police, our law enforcement was protected not only by the Department of Justice which resembled President Trumps, but also by qualified immunity under state laws across the country, including in Alabama.  In Alabama, and elsewhere, this immunity offered essentially categorical protection when radicals, criminals, activists, and others tried to bankrupt an officer personally for actions related to their jobs.  Qualified immunity is a cop’s best friend, which is perhaps why the radicals at the ACLU have made abolishing qualified immunity one of their promotional campaigns, alongside pushing for catch-and-release bail policies and defunding the police.

Sadly, we now have a candidate running for Attorney General—Jay Mitchell—who has assisted the radicals at the ACLU by disrupting the ironclad qualified immunity regime in Alabama.  As a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court, in Ex Parte Pinkard, Mitchell effectively declared open season on law enforcement personnel, dismantling the categorical approach Alabama had for qualified immunity, removing a bar to claims “that name and seek relief from individual officers in their personal capacity,” and permitting anyone—including radicals and criminals—to pursue officers’ “personal assets.”   Only two short years after the height of the “defund the police” movement and in the middle of Joe Biden’s push for “police reform,” Mitchell—a Republican—advanced the left’s agenda in Alabama. 

Mitchell’s opinion in Pinkard did not just create a nightmare scenario for the state investigator who was sued by a private plaintiff in the case itself, it created a volatile climate for Alabama’s law enforcement.  His decision has bound other judges and led to the diminution of qualified immunity for law enforcement personnel in state court. Law enforcement defendants in Alabama have now been forced to look to federal courts for meaningful protection, which is a travesty, particularly in a state that prides itself on “backing the blue.” Fortunately, the Alabama Legislature recognized this judicially-created disaster and passed a widely-publicized immunity law this session—providing law enforcement officers with increased protection from being personally sued for actions taken in the course of their jobs.

There is no beating around the bush here, what Mitchell did in writing Pinkard was fundamentally anti-law enforcement.  And Alabama should not elect someone with an anti-cop track record as state Attorney General.

Any candidate for state attorney general, the state’s chief law enforcement officer, should have recognized the damage that could and would occur from a misguided decision like Pinkard.  But judges in their courthouses can easily underestimate the significance of qualified immunity and how failing to protect our officers in every forum negatively impacts communities across our country when it comes to recruiting officers.  The people of our state deserve an attorney general with a firm grasp on the issues that matter most to the law enforcement community.  Just ask any law enforcement officer and they'll tell you—besides a weapon and a bulletproof vest, qualified immunity is their most essential safeguard.

In Pinkard, Jay Mitchell missed the mark.  No one should trust that Mitchell would do anything different as Attorney General.  And that is why you cannot trust him to be our next Attorney General. 

John C. White began his career as a police cadet with the Dothan Police Department in May 1973, progressing through all ranks until his retirement as Captain in November 1993. On August 2, 1994, after being retired from the department for less than a year, he was appointed chief of police. After serving as a professional police officer for 31 years with the City of Dothan, Alabama, he retired in December 2004 and joined the Cobb & Boyd Law Firm.

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