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Citing Racist Behavior, Judges Ban Lawyer From Courthouse Floor
Lawyer rapped for disrespectful behavior says he has apologized, won't appeal order that a deputy must escort him to fifth floor
Fulton County Daily Report
July 30, 2008
Citing "racist and disrespectful behavior to court staff," two judges have banned an Atlanta divorce lawyer from coming to the fifth floor of the DeKalb County Courthouse without an escort.
In their July 15 order, DeKalb Superior Court Chief Judge Anne Workman and Judge Gregory A. Adams refer to "events occurring on July 14, 2008," for their unusual limit on Paul R. Koehler's access to the fifth floor, where the judges have chambers.
Koehler, who is white, acknowledged in an interview that he had addressed an African-American court staffer as a "little monkey" but said he thought he was speaking to someone else he knew.
Koehler said the woman he had addressed turned out to be someone he assumes is a member of Workman's staff. "It never passed my mind that it even was a member of the judge's staff," Koehler said Monday. "It was a pretty black lady that I thought I knew and was joking with."
Workman and Adams' order says that Koehler cannot appear on the fifth floor -- "from this day forward" -- unless he is escorted by a sheriff's deputy. The order also says Koehler may not address either of those judges' staff for any reason but must direct all communications on those judges' cases in writing to the judge.
Koehler said he cannot recall ever having a case before Adams and recalls only one case before Workman, which he described as "totally uneventful."
The order does not bear the number of any particular case but is headed "Administrative Order In re Paul Koehler, Attorney at Law."
"Attorney Koehler's racist and disrespectful behavior to court staff will not be tolerated by the judges of the Superior Court of DeKalb County," reads the order.
Koehler said the written order was "overkill."
"If the court had verbally instructed me, I would have followed the verbal order," he said.
A graduate of Emory University School of Law, Koehler has been a member of the State Bar since 1963, has no public bar discipline record and said the majority of his solo practice is family law.
A partial courthouse ban on a lawyer is not without precedent. In 2003, a federal district judge banned a lawyer from the third floor of the federal courthouse in Greenville, Miss., saying George D. Prewitt Jr. could attend required hearings there but only when escorted by a U.S. marshal. The district judge cited "slanderous and anti-Semitic remarks" by Prewitt toward a magistrate judge and federal appeals court judges, referring to 81 pages of documents that constituted a "small sample of the disrespectful, anti-Semitic and threatening diatribe that he has submitted to this and other courts over the years."
That district judge acknowledged that the government cannot require someone to give up his constitutional right to enter public property in exchange for a "discretionary benefit," such as practicing law before a particular court. But, wrote the judge, the government could reserve its property for its dedicated use -- in that case, the orderly administration of federal cases -- and limit Prewitt's "unnecessary presence" in the courthouse. Later that year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the order in In re Prewitt, 84 Fed. Appx. 397, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid to hear the case.
Koehler said he had been in the midst of a trial -- "it doesn't matter" which judge he was before, he said -- and was in the hallway on a lunch break waiting for a court staffer to bring out a document that was being faxed from his office. He said he was talking and joking with a woman sitting at a reception desk. "And a lady who I thought I knew after 45 years of practicing law ... who I've kidded with for years walked by me," said Koehler.
"I made a comment like, 'How you doing, you little monkey?' or something like that," said Koehler. "I had no intent to make it a racial comment. ... If I had not known the lady I would not have said a word. It was a poor choice of words. It was meant as a joke. ... I can see how it was taken the wrong way. There's not much I can do about it after it happened.
"I didn't mean it the way it came out," Koehler continued. "I think every day, when I'm playing with my granddaughter or I'm playing with someone else I use that word, monkey. ... I have a niece who is black. I am not a stereotype."
Koehler said later that day Adams asked him to come with him, and they proceeded to Workman's courtroom. "And that's when it hit me," he said. The woman who was the object of the "monkey" remark was there and repeated what he had said, Koehler recalled.
The signatures of Adams and Workman on the order are dated July 14, the same day as the referenced incident, and the file stamp is dated the following day. Efforts to contact Adams and Workman were unsuccessful.
Koehler added that he has written letters of apology to Workman and Adams -- a letter to the staff member would violate the order, he noted -- and would not bring a legal challenge to the order. "I'm in a no-win situation," he said. "It says what it says, and I'm just going to go on with my life."
