More than 3/4s of the signatures that led to mayor’s suspension came from just one part of Martinsville. It’s a neighborhood unlike the rest of the city.

To win election to the Martinsville City Council in a closely contested election four years ago, L.C. Jones needed votes from all six of the city’s voting precincts to eke out a narrow, 91-vote victory.

To remove Jones from office — suspended from office for two months — and put him on trial to be removed permanently, critics needed only one of those precincts.

That precinct, which supplied more than three-quarters of the signatures needed to trigger the removal process, is politically and demographically unlike the rest of Martinsville.

In a city that’s almost evenly divided along racial lines, it’s the only majority-white precinct.

In a city that almost always votes Democratic, it’s the only precinct that consistently votes Republican.

In a city that’s growing younger, it’s the precinct with the highest median age — and one of only two where that median age is rising, not falling.

In other words, Martinsville’s Precinct 5 is quite unlike the rest of the city around it, yet voters there have managed to set in motion something rare in Virginia politics: a trial on whether the city’s mayor should be removed from office.

Let’s put this another way: A petition mostly signed by voters in Martinsville’s only majority-white precinct managed to temporarily oust the city’s Black mayor — and could still lead to his permanent removal.

I want to be clear: There is no evidence whatsoever that the removal petition is inspired by any kind of racial animus. I also offer no insight into whether Jones did or didn’t do the things he’s accused of — the petition begins by alleging “acceptance of a bribe” then goes on to say Jones “neglected” to report various conflicts of interest and an attempt “to impede lawful efforts to address credible reports” of violations of state and federal law. These are serious charges which are now under investigation by a special prosecutor. If that special prosecutor finds sufficient evidence for an indictment, we have a court system to handle such things.

My curiosity is solely about the separate process that’s been initiated to remove Jones from office before any criminal charges have been filed.

I devoted a previous column to this process. The short version: Only four localities in Virginia have provisions for recall elections. In others, the removal process requires a petition with a certain number of signatures (varies by size of locality) that winds up in court. Almost all these get dismissed because the legal bar is high. This year, though, Virginia has two removal cases in process, one against the mayor of Martinsville, the other against the vice mayor of Purcellville, a town in Loudoun County.

The case against Ben Nett in Purcellville went to trial last week. A jury found him guilty of conflict of interest but not more serious charges, and allowed him to continue in office. This was the first removal trial to go to a conclusion in Virginia since 1953, when a jury in Princess Anne County (now Virginia Beach) declined to remove its sheriff. You have to go back to 1911 to find an elected official in Virginia removed from office; that was Roanoke Mayor Joel Cutchin, who was accused of allowing brothels to flourish.

As I pointed out in that previous column, Virginia’s removal law is written so broadly that it has allowed for the cases in Purcellville and Martinsville to proceed in two very different ways. In Northern Virginia, a white vice mayor under indictment on bid-rigging charges was allowed to serve for nine months before his removal case went to trial. In Southside, a Black mayor who has not been charged with any crime was suspended for two months before his removal trial could be held. A different judge recently reinstated Jones but the fact remains, these cases unfolded in two very different ways. Does that show the law is too broadly written or does it show the law is sufficiently flexible?

Today, I will look at a different aspect of the law: what it takes to set the removal process in motion. State law lays out two main reasons. One is conviction of certain crimes, which is clear enough. The other is “neglect of a clear, ministerial duty of the office, misuse of the office, or incompetence in the performance of the duties of the office.” Those standards are harder to define, but we likely do need some judicial way to remove an official who neglects or misuses the office or is just flat-out incompetent.

The petition that set the Jones removal case in Martinsville in motion alleges some neglect. However, it also alleges at least one actual crime — “acceptance of a bribe” — and likely another, impeding efforts to address allegations of lawbreaking, which might constitute obstruction of justice. I’ll let the lawyers deal with that, but accepting a bribe is very clearly defined as a Class 4 felony, for which the penalty is two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

The odd thing here, procedurally, is that the mayor of Martinsville is set to face a removal trial for “acceptance of a bribe” with no criminal indictment whatsoever, merely the say-so of the petition signers. Yes, a judge read all this and felt this was sufficient to suspend the mayor, but this is still an allegation of a serious crime that has taken place outside the regular criminal justice system. Is this a good idea? We live in contentious political times. Is it wise to have a system where a group of people can simply sign a petition and effectively charge an office-holder with a crime? Shouldn’t allegations of a crime have to go through the standard criminal justice mechanisms — a police investigation, a grand jury indictment, an arrest warrant? The petition’s allegation that Jones “neglected” to report conflicts of interest seems to fall squarely under the removal statute’s language about neglect, misuse and incompetence, but if people can simply sign a petition and allege that an office-holder committed a felony, that seems ripe for misuse even if turns out to be completely justified in this case.

Then there’s the matter of who signed the petition. This is more of a political observation than a legal one, but we are talking about an elected official here, so politics is tied up in this. Jones’ legal team has circulated a map that says 76.3% of the petition-signers came from a single precinct: Precinct 5, described above. Not willing to take this claim at face value, Cardinal commissioned freelance journalist Hugh Lessig to map all the names and addresses on the petition — and we came to the same conclusion. You can see our map here:

In this case, voters in one part of town have been able to set in motion a removal trial for a council member elected citywide. Maybe this is a good thing, maybe it’s not. On the good side: The law allows a group of aggrieved voters to seek recourse. The fact that these petition-signers may be in the political minority in Martinsville is irrelevant. While our democratic system is built on the concept of “majority rules,” we do build in protections for political minorities. Perhaps this is one of them. On the not-so-good side: The politics here start to give the appearance of a racial dimension to the case even if there is none.

Martinsville is 48.1% white, 46.1% Black. The vast majority of the petition-signers come from a precinct that nearly matches Census Tract 5, which is 73.4% white — and the only census tract in the city with a white majority. Perhaps this is a situation where the law allows a group of concerned citizens to raise their concerns in a judicial forum; they shouldn’t be penalized for who they are or where they live. Or, politically, this could be a case of the tail wagging the dog — a small minority exerting an outsized power.

The larger question may be this: Virginia removal law, once little used, is now being turned to more often. Is it working? Or do these cases shine light on ways it should be changed?

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