This fight now has a second front. On June 21, after a four-day trial here, a jury ruled in favor of Deputy Farmer, the arresting officer, in a libel suit he brought against the Post newspaper, its publisher Al Parsons, and reporter Charles Moore. Farmer was awarded $225,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, with the three defendants each having to pay him $75,000.

Farmer said that he sued the paper because it called him a "murderer" and accused him of beating Williams with a long metal flashlight. "It hurts to read something like that," Farmer claimed in his testimony before the court.

Cops have used libel laws before to target newspapers in cases of police brutality. The object of such suits is to intimidate or financially ruin a media source that gives "bad press" to the cops.

Charles Moore, a 51-year-old unpaid columnist for the Post, said the suit was "about control and fear played out in a small town in Georgia. Fear that if the masses can understand that they have power, the few who control the world can no longer control it. The purpose of the suit is to financially destroy the paper. Needless to say, I don’t have that kind of money and they know it. I will fight this all the way."

According to Moore, the damages are based on what it would take for Farmer to pick up and move elsewhere. Over the three years since the murder of Willie James Williams, Farmer has received promotions and raises. "He had no stripes and now he is a staff sergeant with four stripes," stated Moore.

"Why did Kevin Farmer sue the Post? That’s the question," said Rev. Floyd Rose, a leader of the People’s Tribunal. The Tribunal is a civil rights organization that has campaigned in defense of workers and farmers in the region. It was formed in the fight to gain justice for the family of Willie James Williams.

"Why?" Rose asked. "Well, all you have to do is ask who is paying for the suit. Kevin Farmer admitted he wasn’t paying for it. Kevin Farmer didn’t even know he was suing the Post until somebody told him. He learned about it when he read it in the Post."

Lawyers for the Post fought to learn in pretrial discovery who is financing and directing the libel suit, but their efforts were stonewalled. Lowndes County deputy sheriff Capt. Sam Temples testified in a pretrial hearing that he had raised $90,000 in cash from 70 individuals for Farmer’s defense.

The high-priced legal team included former Georgia attorney general Michael Bowers and William Langdale, who is from a wealthy local family with interests in timber, lumber, the automotive industry, and land.  
 
‘Verdict is a blow’
"The verdict is a blow," stated Leigh Touchton, president of the Valdosta National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a prominent member of the People’s Tribunal. After attending two days of the trial Touchton is convinced that Parsons and Moore did not receive a fair trial. "Neither the judge nor the jury seemed to understand the first thing about freedom of the press, and the judge all but instructed the jury to convict them. Mike Bowers did not successfully prove libel, which must include reckless disregard for the facts and malice," continued Touchton.

Among the statements made by Moore in his Post column was that "the murder of Willie James Williams was nothing but an old-fashioned lynching conducted by a mob wearing badges."

Moore may have been referring to the fact that the medical examiner’s report ruled Willie James Williams’s death a "homicide," and photos and the written report listed a total of 32 injuries over Williams’s body. The medical examiner’s report ruled the cause of death "blunt force head trauma." A coroner’s inquest ruled the death "accidental," with the three jury members who are white outvoting the two who were Black over the designation. Judge Harry Altman ruled the testimony of the two Black jurors inadmissible and they were not allowed to testify at the libel trial.

According to Moore, Willie James Williams told four people that he was beaten by the police: the woman he was living with who he phoned, an emergency room nurse, a jail nurse, and an inmate. The full extent of the beating he received is not known because the police booking tape from the jail for the period after Williams was brought to the Lowndes County jail has disappeared.

"Whether Kevin Farmer struck Willie James Williams on the back of the head, or whether he slammed him face first onto the pavement, or struck him at all with a flashlight, it is important that this community understands that Willie James Williams is dead as a direct result of the contact that he had with Kevin Farmer on Sept. 1, 1998," said Rose.

"Kevin Farmer acknowledged under oath on the witness stand that Willie James Williams’s death resulted from his taking him to the pavement, in his words--slamming him onto the pavement in the words of at least three witnesses," continued Rose. "Our position has not changed. If Willie James Williams had not been slammed to the pavement that night, his teeth knocked out, his ribs separated, neck broken, he would be alive today."

The family of Willie James Williams has announced a $12 million civil suit. Parsons and Moore say they will appeal the verdict of the libel suit.

Arlene Rubinstein is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1996 in Atlanta.  
 
 
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