Blue Sheepdog

***UPDATE***

It seems the Atlanta Journal Constitution made a bit of an error in their reporting of this story.  It seems the lawsuit was filed in 2007 and it was dismissed last Friday.  This is the retraction they posted:

An earlier version of this story, posted Wednesday afternoon, was incorrect in stating that the lawsuit was filed this week. The lawsuit was filed last year, and was dismissed Friday. There is no new lawsuit involving Howard.

The original post and story follows.

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Fulton County (GA) District Attorney Paul Howard has been involved in a number of controversial cases over the years in Atlanta. Perhaps the one of the low points in his career as the chief prosecutor is when he was ordered from a courtroom in 2006 by Judge Jackson Bedford. As a deputy tried to escort him from the courtroom, the deputy claims Howard physically resisted and caused her injuries.

Howard was never prosecuted for obstructing the deputy, so we must assume his innocence. However, Howard is now being sued by the deputy. I am interested in seeing how this one turns out.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Deputy sues Fulton D.A. over scuffle
A deputy sued Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard in federal court Wednesday, asking for monetary damages for the injuries she said she suffered during a scuffle with the prosecutor.

Fulton Deputy Levoular McCray said in the suit filed in U.S. District Court she wants compensatory damages from Howard for hurting her physically and emotionally and for slandering her when he said at a news conference she was a “disgrace to the uniform.”

The confrontation between McCray and Howard last March 31, 2006, began in the courtroom of T. Jackson Bedford and continued in an adjoining inmate holding cell.

Bedford had ordered McCray to escort Howard from the courtroom after the prosecutor persisted, over Bedford’s objections, in questioning jurors who had acquitted an accused rapist.

Howard struggled with the deputy as she tried to handcuff him and lead him from the courtroom and he reportedly slammed her against the wall when he tried to get out of the cell where he was taken.

McCray and her attorney tried unsuccessfully to get criminal charges brought in Fulton. They secured an arrest warrant in Douglas County that was quickly dropped. A special prosecutor declined to seek an indictment against Howard after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation looked into McCray’s allegations.