Attorney Ken Poston on the law and government
Ringgold attorney Ken Poston – or McCracken King Poston, Jr. – has a long list of accomplishments and experience to his name, but it’s the law and his clients’ rights he prefers to talk about, he says.
In particular, Poston is passionate about the Constitutional rights of individuals. The back of his business card cites the Fifth and Sixth amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These amendments, Poston says on the card, “guarantee your right to remain silent during and your right to a lawyer before questioning by government authorities. Do not feel ashamed to avail yourself of these important rights. Do not bend to pressure or waive them.”
In support of his sincerity is Poston’s career taking unpopular cases and rigorously defending people who are vulnerable to the excesses or carelessness that sometimes plague government agencies, from law enforcement to the court systems.
“The problem isn’t even always that there’s ill-intent on the part of a prosecutor or the police or some other entity,” Poston says. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of becoming overzealous based on first appearances.”
A case in point is the Marsh family Tri-State Crematory incident in which three family members had charges brought against them by the state for signing a document on the wrong line. “It turned out,” says Poston, who found a retired state employee familiar with the situation, “that officials actually instructed the family to sign on that line and were in the practice of inserting signatures themselves if the line was left blank.” The state ultimately dismissed the charges.
“Things aren’t always what they seem,” says Poston. “That’s why it’s important for everyone to have adequate representation.”
When Poston found himself defending a woman who claimed that a judge had inappropriately propositioned her and that at the judge’s behest police later pulled her over and “found” meth that had been planted on her car, he ended up having to also deal with the discovery that the woman was a meth addict. “That didn’t change the fact that she was telling the truth and that what the judge and others did was grossly wrong,” says Poston. The judge, two police officers and one other person were brought to trial and found guilty on various charges in the case. All four were sentenced to federal prison.
“You can’t judge a person based solely on the charges brought against them,” says Poston. “There’s more to a person than a single mistake or even multiple mistakes they’ve made in their lives, and that has to be taken into consideration. The woman was a meth addict, but that didn’t make it okay to set her up or to try to take advantage of her in the first place.”
The practice of law has been just one part of Poston’s life. He’s also served four terms as a representative in the Georgia Legislature, where he got a dose of unbridled politics early on. “I got to Atlanta and learned that lobbyists were courting legislators completely free of any rules. They didn’t have to report their activities or gifts. They were taking lawmakers out to lunch at swanky establishments every day, treating them to trips to golf tournaments, giving them gifts.”
But almost before he’d gotten his head around the process of state government, Poston ended up in the hospital and was diagnosed with Type I diabetes. “That was a turning point for me,” he says. “It made me aware of my own mortality and made me think about what I really wanted to do with my life and my time in the legislature.”
Angering powerful figures in his own party, Poston introduced the “Ethics in Government Act of 1992.” “An epic battle against the House leadership ensued,” says Poston, “but the act passed and brought accountability to the lobbying process. A legislator’s vote may not be for sale for one lunch or tournament, but when they add up, he or she is going to think twice about voting against a special interest that’s treated them to so many perks.”
Is the legal scene improving? Poston says that as long as there are humans involved in the process it will never be perfect and the battle to protect the rights of citizens will continue. “Back before I went to law school, I was doing an internship and was invited to ride along with an officer to pick up a prisoner. The glove compartment in the patrol car popped open and I saw a pile of marijuana joints. I told the officer, ‘Look, some evidence from a case was left in the glove box.’ He laughed and said it wasn’t evidence – it was for use when an officer suspected drugs in a car or home but couldn’t find them. Over three decades later, I found myself defending a woman who had drugs planted on her car under very different circumstances.”
Poston says that one of the greatest recent advances in Georgia is the Public Defender system that provides public defense attorneys for indigent citizens in every county. “Since the dawn of civilization, every government has had judges and prosecutors, but only relatively recently in history have defense lawyers been provided or even allowed to participate in a criminal trial.”
“The important thing,” says Poston, “is to keep working for more honest government and to make sure that citizens know their rights and aren’t afraid to exercise them. We have a lot of good law enforcement out there, a lot of good judges and government officials, probably most of them are honest. The bad ones hurt everyone, not just citizens. They hurt their fellow police and judges and government officials. As a lawyer, you won’t always be popular ferreting out dishonesty or even just plain mistakes made by officials, you won’t always be popular for basing your defense on every scrap of evidence you can find, but your client – guilty, partly guilty or innocent – deserves nothing less.”