Alabama publisher charged over report on grand jury investigation

All criminal charges against Atmore News publisher Sherry Digmon and reporter Don Fletcher were dismissed on April 19, 2024, multiple outlets reported.

The Alabama journalists were arrested in October 2023 and each charged with a felony — Fletcher for reporting and Digmon for publishing an article on an ongoing grand jury investigation related to school board funds. They were placed under a prior restraint as a condition of bail.

Escambia County District Attorney Stephen Billy initially brought the charges, but later recused himself from prosecuting their cases, citing personal and legal conflicts of interest, WEAR-TV reported. The Alabama attorney general’s office then took over the case and in April requested that all charges be dismissed, according to AL.com.

An Alabama circuit judge agreed to the request and entered orders of dismissal for Fletcher, Digmon and a bookkeeper for the county school system, Veronica “Ashley” Fore, who had been charged with leaking grand jury information to the media.

Fletcher told WEAR-TV that the case had hurt him reputationally and financially, and accused Billy of abusing the power of his office.

“We’re just glad that these folks are able to get back to doing their job,” Earnest White, an attorney representing Fletcher and Digmon, told the Tracker. He speculated that the attorney general had dismissed the charges once “they realized it was just political.”

White criticized the district attorney, saying of his recusal, “Whatever conflicts he had, … he had the same conflicts before he indicted these people.”

Atmore News publisher Sherry Digmon and reporter Don Fletcher have been placed under a prior restraint as a condition of bail set on Oct. 30, 2023, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

The two were arrested in Atmore, Alabama, on Oct. 27, and each charged with a felony — Fletcher for reporting and Digmon for publishing on an ongoing grand jury investigation related to school board funds.

In the signed orders that followed their initial court appearance, both journalists were directed to have “no communication about ongoing criminal investigations, including school board matter.”

No such order was included in the bail agreement for Veronica “Ashley” Fore — a bookkeeper for the county school system who was charged with leaking grand jury information to the media.

Earnest White, an attorney representing Fletcher and Digmon, told the Tracker he has advised them not to publish any additional grand jury information to ensure that the judge does not revoke their bail.

Freedom of the Press Foundation — which oversees the operation of the Tracker — condemned the arrests of Fletcher and Digmon and called on the district attorney to drop the charges against them.

“The problem is that Alabama’s grand jury secrecy statute prohibits grand jurors, witnesses and others directly involved in grand jury proceedings from disclosing information about a grand jury,” the press release stated. “It does not — and under the First Amendment, cannot — codify a prior restraint that bars the press from disclosing grand jury information it obtains from a source.”