Hurley case becomes battle of mo

Hurley case becomes battle of motions

Jeremy Nash news-herald.net

Russell Johnson, 9th Judicial District attorney general, has responded to two motions filed a month ago by the attorney for Loudon County Commissioner Julia Hurley pertaining to her residency.

Hurley’s attorney T. Scott Jones on April 20 filed motions to dismiss the case and disqualify Johnson. Johnson entered responses May 29 with Loudon County Clerk and Master Lisa Niles.

Johnson said the motion to disqualify is “based on supposition and meant to distract the court from the true issue at hand.”

Johnson in March submitted a petition against Hurley in an effort to end the question of whether she permanently moved out of the second district and into the fifth district.

The complaint is “a political dispute” between Hurley, Johnson and County Commissioner Van Shaver, Jones said. He asked for Johnson to be a necessary witness.

Shaver initially questioned Hurley’s residency about a year ago after learning of it through social media.

“The assertions made within the respondent’s motion to disqualify are premature and irrelevant to the matter before the court,” Johnson said. “The respondent is attempting to make District Attorney General Russell Johnson a witness in this matter when the only information he could offer is hearsay as he supervised the investigation, no different than a personal injury attorney sending an investigator out to gather information and receiving a report back.”

Tennessee Rules of Professional Responsibility require “a lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless after reasonable inquiry the lawyer has a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous.”

Johnson said there is little case law on disqualifying an attorney as a necessary witness, but referenced State vs. Spears, which questions what qualifies a necessary witness for disqualification.

“The respondent wishes to paint the picture of a political conspiracy when it is undisputed that she moved from the second commission district to the fifth commission district irrespective of whatever explanation she has concocted to justify moving out of her elected district,” Johnson said.

Jones replied June 3 to Johnson’s response to the motion to dismiss.

“The plaintiffs argue in their petition that the laws should be strictly enforced against the defendant, but now argue that they should be excused from compliance with the very statute under which they have filed this action,” Jones said.

He said the motion to disqualify is “straight of the rules of the Board of Professional Responsibility.”

“He’s got to be disqualified,” Jones said. “If the judge looks at it, because the fact he’s made himself a party, you can’t do that. You can’t be a party and the attorney. That’s his problem with that. I mean it’s just, if that motion is heard, which it would be heard second, I think it’s granted, but I don’t think the court ever gets to it because ordinarily you would hear the dispositive motion first and the dispositive motion is the motion to dismiss, which means it ends the whole lawsuit. Well, if it ends the whole lawsuit it doesn’t make a difference as to whether or not the general represents them or not.