Judge Jack D. Carl: This Racist Labeled Me an “Arrogant Nigger” in a Note He Passed to His Law Clerk During a Court Hearing

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on April 25, 2026

Former Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Court Judge Jack D. Carl.

On June 19, 1986, a company named Link Carnival, Inc., filed a complaint for declaratory relief, temporary restraining order, and injunctive relief against the City of Birmingham and Southern Expositions, Inc., the entity selected by the City on June 17, 1986, to operate the Fall 1986 Alabama State Fair and carnival concession.  Link Carnival claimed the City had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in authorizing Mayor Richard Arrington, Jr., to execute a contract with Southern Expositions.

Link Carnival suggested that Arrington was a crook who had been bribed by Gerald Murphy, owner of a 65% interest in Southern Expositions, to win the contract to operate the Fall 1986 Alabama State Fair and carnival concession.

Jefferson County, Alabama Circuit Court Judge Jack Carl was the trial judge in the case. Attorney W. Eugene Rutledge, a racist Birmingham lawyer who had to be physically restrained by a police officer from fighting me during a pre-hearing deposition in the case, represented Link Carnival. I represented the City of Birmingham, along with Assistant City Attorney Samuel Fisher.

Judge Carl issued a temporary restraining order in the case on June 19th, without any notice to the City or an opportunity to be heard. Carl also set a hearing date for the preliminary injunction, which he eventually granted on August 12, 1986.

During the hotly contested preliminary injunction hearing, I subjected the main witness for Link Carnival to an intense cross-examination and broke him on the witness stand. During my questioning of this witness, Judge Carl passed a note to his law clerk who read it, smirked, balled it up, and threw it in the trash can.

During the lunch break, I retrieved Judge Carl’s note from the trash can. The note said, “I can’t stand this arrogant nigger,” referring to me.

Before the hearing resumed after the lunch break, I asked for permission to put something on the record. Without waiting for a response, I read Judge Carl’s note into the record and described how he passed it to his law clerk and the clerk's reaction.

Carl turned red in the face and neck and started banging his gavel. He said I was out of order. Based on the racist language in his note, I asked Judge Carl to recuse himself, right then and there. He promptly adjourned the hearing.

The City filed a mandamus requiring Judge Carl to recuse himself from the case, as well as a "protective" notice of appeal from the August 12^th preliminary injunction that Carl rendered without further evidence in the case.

On September 4, 1987, a unanimous Alabama Supreme Court ruled in the City’s favor in City of Birmingham v. Link Carnival, Inc., 514 So.2d 792 (Ala. 1987). The Court vacated the preliminary injunction and required Judge Carl to dismiss the Link Carnival complaint, with prejudice. The Court said there was no need to address the recusal issue that was based upon Judge Carl’s note calling me an “arrogant nigger” because the Link Carnival case had been dismissed.

Judge Jack Carl retired from the bench in 2002 after serving 21 years and 3 months on the state court bench. I never tried another case in his courtroom.