By Sondra Washington
When the state’s gambling battle began, few cases escalated to Alabama’s Supreme Court. But as gambling supporters and opponents began taking their differences to local circuit courts, many wanted higher-level opinions to resolve their legal issues. Still the high court remained relatively quiet on matters related to slot machine-style gambling until Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling joined the fight.
In September 2008, Etowah Baptist Association attempted to intervene in a declaratory judgment case to determine which law the Etowah County sheriff should enforce: the constitutional amendment limiting gambling to “that game commonly known as bingo” played on “a card or paper sheet” or the County Commission’s new bingo regulations allowing so-called “electronic bingo machines” passed in July 2008. When a circuit court refused its request, the association appealed to the state’s highest court.
It took a year for the justices to respond to Etowah Association, but in March 2010, they dismissed the appeal because the “circuit court had no jurisdiction over the declaratory judgment action.” With this ruling, they were not required to state whether they believed the types of machines being used in Alabama were legal.
Earlier, in December 2008, Riley created the task force and named former Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber commander. It focused its attention on White Hall Entertainment Center in Lowndes County and raided the facility March 19, 2009. A legal battle ensued and eventually found its way to the Supreme Court. In their November 2009 ruling, the justices defined legal bingo but again did not add an opinion specific to the machines in question.
This year, the Supreme Court has continued to side with the task force in cases from several counties, which many believe proves that Riley’s position on gambling aligns with the state’s constitution.
The high court ruled in favor of the task force when Houston County commissioners and business owners received an early morning restraining order Jan. 6 from Circuit Judge P.B. McLauchlin (a judge for Dale and Geneva counties) protecting Country Crossing near Dothan from a raid. Riley’s office said no task force lawyers were present when McLauchlin’s order was issued to the casino’s supporters in the “middle of the night.” The justices overruled McLauchlin’s actions.
In their ruling, they again said, “The trial court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to interfere with a criminal proceeding (task force raid) by civil action (restraining order).”
Riley’s office called the ruling a “major victory for the rule of law in Alabama” and said, “The Supreme Court’s order makes clear that gambling bosses around the state will not be able to prevent the state’s anti-gambling laws from being enforced.”
Similar rulings were handed down in cases involving Greene and Macon counties, where state and local officials attempted to protect casino operations at Greenetrack in Eutaw and VictoryLand in Shorter.
The high court overruled one restraining order after another issued by circuit judges in both counties and eventually had to remove Greene County Circuit Judge Eddie Hardaway from the Greenetrack case. Hardaway continued to issue restraining orders against the task force even after the justices repeatedly ruled that a circuit court has no jurisdiction over the task force’s law enforcement activities.
A similar action is expected in Macon County, where Circuit Judge Tom Young has issued similar restraining orders against the task force concerning VictoryLand’s slot machine-style casino. Most recently, the Supreme Court has refused to rehear a case in which it reversed Young’s latest injunction. But the task force has not yet attempted another raid of VictoryLand, which has sectioned off the portion of its business housing the electronic gambling machines.
After the high court’s ruling, John Tyson, the task force’s current commander, said in a press release, “This is the end of the illegal injunction that had prevented law enforcement from taking action in Macon County.”
So far, the justices have not issued a ruling addressing the slot machine-style devices at the heart of Alabama’s gambling battle. Birmingham attorney Eric Johnston said a case specifically asking about the machines will have to be brought before the Supreme Court for such a ruling to be issued.
“What’s going to have to happen is the task force is going to have to confiscate these machines and bring in a case to the circuit court,” he said. “The court is going to have to inspect the machines and say whether [they are] legal.”
Johnston added that if one of the parties has a problem with the ruling, then it can appeal to the high court. But the trouble with this scenario is that casino owners are protecting their machines to keep the task force from confiscating them and having them inspected.
“They know they are going to lose when the Supreme Court gets a proper case,” he said. “They have been delaying and filing all these lawsuits and claims to try and stop the task force. If the task force wasn’t there, they wouldn’t be in all these lawsuits. The Supreme Court has been chipping away at this little case and that little case, but the gamblers know that if they (the justices) cannot get the machines before them, they can’t rule on them. … So they (the gamblers) hide them (the machines) away and wait for January (when the task force may be dissolved by the new governor).”
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