Attorney contesting Sharrock's spot on the ballot

photo Charles Sharrock

A lawyer says Fort Oglethorpe's election superintendent abused her power and violated Georgia's constitution.

Two weeks after early voting began, attorney Stuart James filed an appeal in Catoosa County Superior Court on Monday asking a judge to rule that City Council candidate Charles Sharrock's presence on the ballot is illegal. The election is next Tuesday.

Sharrock previously held office, but the rest of the council fired him for suspected sexual harassment in November 2012 after three city employees said he hugged and kissed them. He is running in the election to determine his own replacement.

James says Sharrock cannot return to the city council until his original term was supposed to end in 2016. But much of James' lawsuit is not about Sharrock. It is about Elections Superintendent Orma Luckey.

Luckey presided over a hearing on this issue on Oct. 9 and ruled that Sharrock is still allowed to run. But James, who represents a Fort Oglethorpe citizen protesting Sharrock's campaign, said Luckey violated his client's due process and is biased in favor of Sharrock.

When Sharrock applied to run in September, Luckey told multiple media outlets that no laws restricted his campaign. And, during the hearing to determine whether that was true, Luckey would not let James call witnesses.

"Luckey has purposefully and intentionally conducted in [sic] illegal election containing the name of a candidate who is not qualified to be on the ballot," James wrote in his appeal to superior court this week.

James says Sharrock cannot run in this election because he was convicted of malfeasance of office. But he and Sharrock disagree on what the word "conviction" actually means.

Sharrock has correctly pointed out that no criminal court has found him guilty of malfeasance. But James argues that isn't necessary. The rest of the city council found him guilty, and Superior Court Judge Jon "Bo" Wood upheld the firing, saying that Sharrock committed "illegal conduct."

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Luckey said James has not given her a copy of the lawsuit.

"I just heard about it at the council meeting last night," she said Tuesday. "That's all I know. Isn't that nice? I haven't seen it."

She objects to James' claim that she was biased. Even though she publicly stated in September that Sharrock was allowed to run, she said she cleared her mind and examined the evidence impartially during the hearing two weeks later.

She also objects to the claims about violating due process rights. She said she would have allowed James to call any witness he wanted except for one: Charles Sharrock.

Her reasoning?

"They wanted to ask him questions," she said. "I did not allow them to ask questions because he was not on trial. ... (The hearing) was all about to prove or disprove that he would be disqualified. Not to go back over whether he was guilty of all those things they brought up."

James says this is illogical. The hearing was held to determine whether Sharrock could run, given his past behavior. They couldn't have that hearing at all without revisiting the sexual harassment case, James said.

Contact Staff Writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or at tjett@timesfreepress.com.

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