Ken in the courtroom -- protecting rights of everyday citizens

Here’s an interesting letter to the editor from 10 years ago, followed by 2010 Gazette-Journal and Daily Press articles as background.

All demonstrate that Ken Gibson will fight for everyday Gloucester citizens to protect our Constitutional rights.

Letter to the Gazette-Journal Editor from 2011

POSTED ON JUNE 2, 2011

Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Last year, I learned the hard way that ordinary citizens can have their Constitutional rights attacked at any time and without any warning. My rights—and by extension the rights of every citizen of the Commonwealth—were successfully defended by an exceptional attorney named Ken Gibson….

In 2008 as today, I am a member of the "Gloucester 40" who circulated a petition to oust certain local ‘leaders.’ The ‘leaders’ hit back hard, hiring a high-powered Richmond law firm and a former attorney general. They started by serving me with a subpoena demanding that I surrender nearly all of my personal records, including my computer, my notes, my written and typed documents, even my personal diaries!

As a believer in the Constitution and the right to free speech, I decided I was not going to be bullied. Countless brave Americans have died for what the Constitution stands for, which includes the right of the people to exercise free speech and speak out against political corruption. I realized I needed to find an attorney who also believed in the Constitution and was willing to fight a Goliath for a David like me. I was fortunate to find Ken Gibson and saw right away that he was both a fighter and Constitutional scholar. Equally important, I saw he had honor and dignity.

Ken’s motion to quash the subpoena (kill the sucker dead) consisted of 11 pages of brilliant legal research. The Goliath firm couldn’t touch it. When Ken presented his oral argument to the Richmond Circuit Court, his impassioned statements left the entire room in awe. When he finished, the judge quashed my subpoena on the spot, simply saying "I agree with Mr. Gibson."

Ken Gibson is a true patriot and defender of our Constitutional freedoms. He will fight for our home as relentlessly as he fought for me, and defend the principles of freedom that made this country great. I urge others to learn more about Ken Gibson and his exceptional qualifications…

Garr Johnson

Gloucester, Va.

Article from Gazette Journal, Oct. 2010

Judge quashes subpoena in Hicks lawsuit

POSTED ON OCTOBER 20, 2010

One Gloucester resident who was asked to turn over an image of his computer hard drive in the lawsuit against Gloucester Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert "Bob" Hicks now won’t have to do so. Richmond Circuit Court Judge Theodore J. Markow granted a motion Friday afternoon to quash the subpoena for Gloucester resident Garr Johnson.

Johnson’s counsel, Gloucester attorney Kenneth Gibson, said Johnson, a member of the "Gloucester 40," a group of residents who tried to remove four county officials from office following a controversial Gloucester County Board of Supervisors meeting in January 2008, had already provided all of the information he possessed regarding the defamation suit against Hicks.

Attorneys on behalf of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, former Gloucester County Board of Supervisors member Teresa Altemus and current supervisors Bobby Crewe, Michelle Ressler and Gregory Woodard, issued subpoenas to 12 individuals this past spring, including several members of the Gloucester 40, former and current Gloucester Board of Supervisors members, and other former Gloucester County officials seeking a wide variety of information related in any way to Hicks.

Not satisfied with the information received from those subpoenas, plaintiffs’ attorneys later issued additional subpoenas to five of those individuals, seeking to copy an image of their computer hard drives.

Gibson also argued that the subpoenas were "oppressive and burdensome" and impeded Johnson’s First Amendment right to free speech.

Gibson said, "This is about defamation only. That’s it. No more. The other requests go far beyond that."

Among the documents sought by the plaintiffs were correspondence related to the Republican and Democrat committees of Gloucester.

Plaintiffs’ counsel Anthony Troy argued, "We’re just trying to find relevant information."

Troy said there was a "glaring hole" in the information Johnson submitted between January 2008 and June 2008, which he considered a key time period for the case.

After hearing arguments from both sides Markow said, "I’m going to sustain the motion to quash. I agree with the rationale of Mr. Gibson …"

The other four individuals with requests for copies of their hard drives included Gloucester 40 members Arnold Nye and Patricia Cowan, as well as former Gloucester County Board of Supervisors member John Adams and current member Louise Theberge.

Thomas Norment, counsel that represented the other four individuals, said that Cowan had already had a third-party professional examine her hard drive and all pertinent information was turned over to plaintiffs’ attorneys. That computer has now been donated to charity.

Adams’s computer was the one he used when he served on the board prior to 2008 and that computer had been turned back to the county.

That leaves the computers of Nye and Theberge.

During Friday’s hearing, it seemed that counsel on both sides agreed on the procedure for turning over the information, leading Markow at one point to ask, "Why are we here?"

Following a recess when attorneys on both sides met behind closed doors, an agreement was worked out that Nye and Theberge would submit their computer hard drives to a third-party expert to examine pertinent information. Once that information is received, it will be turned over to their attorneys to ensure no confidential or client-privileged information is released. Finally, the information would be submitted to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

The four lawsuits against Hicks were filed in November 2009 in Richmond City Circuit Court by Altemus, Crewe, Ressler and Woodard.

The suits seek $1 million each for Hicks’s alleged "defamatory statements" and $350,000 each for "punitive damages" regarding statements Hicks made that the four supervisors had committed crimes in connection with their service to the board during a speech he gave to a League of Women Voters forum in 2008.

The cases are scheduled to go before a jury in mid-June. However, Markow said he is willing to try to schedule the case earlier if the plaintiffs can have their case ready. "I hate to see a case wait this long," he said.

Article from Daily Press, 2010

Conspiracy in Gloucester? Garr Johnson begs to differ

By MATTHEW SABO

OCT 19, 2010 AT 10:57 AM

The clear victor in Friday's court hearing in Richmond was Garr Johnson, who through his attorney, Kenneth Gibson, successfully quashed a motion from four plaintiffs who sought a copy of his computer hard drive.

The four plaintiffs, Gloucester supervisors Bobby Crewe, Michelle Ressler and Gregory Woodard and ex-supervisor Teresa Altemus, have each filed $1.35 million defamation lawsuits against Commonwealth's Attorney Bob Hicks. As part of the lawsuits, the plaintiffs aim to show a conspiracy was afoot in Gloucester to oust the four supervisors from office, with Hicks instrumental in it.

But in February 2008, Johnson didn't even know who Hicks was, according to a copy of a brief filed Oct. 10. Johnson wrote in a letter in that time frame -- he was drumming up support from citizens to write to Hicks and request that he empanel a grand jury to investigate the supervisors' actions -- that "Hicks has absolutely no knowledge of what I am proposing. I do not know the man, I have never met him, and I have never talked to him concerning this or any other subject. I did not know until yesterday that he is an elected official (that's how close I followed politics until this circus came to town)."