This blog has been reporting on a number of bailout applications around Virginia. One thing that unites all of the bailouts, whether they be in Fredericksburg, Bedford County or Manassas Park is that they all involve the same lawyer, Gerry Hebert. Pajamas Media has this posting at P.J. Tatler about that particular lawyer, and how the taxpayers once had to pay $86,000 in sanctions in a case. Paging Frank Jones and Tom Tomazk.
What is interesting is how the bailout applications seem to be requiring terms which the law does not require. In the case discussed at P.J. Tatler, the court ruled about the DOJ case:
A properly conducted investigation would have quickly revealed that there was no basis for the claim that the Defendants were guilty of purposeful discrimination against black voters…Unfortunately, we cannot restore the reputation of the persons wrongfully branded by the United States as public officials who deliberately deprived their fellow citizens of their voting rights. We also lack the power to remedy the damage done to race relations in Dallas County by the unfounded accusations of purposeful discrimination made by the United States.
We can only hope that in the future the decision makers in the United States Department of Justice will be more sensitive to the impact on racial harmony that can result from the filing of a claim of purposeful discrimination. The filing of an action charging a person with depriving a fellow citizen of a fundamental constitutional right without conducting a proper investigation of its truth is unconscionable.
United States v. Jones, 125 F.3d 1418, 1431 (11th Cir. 1997).