Ethics probe launched after DA calls Islam evil, says he won’t use domestic violence laws to protect gays
An ethics probe has been launched against a Tennessee district attorney who called Islam an “evil belief system” and said he won’t use domestic violence laws to protect people in same-sex marriages.
The prosecutor is Coffee County District Attorney Craig Northcott. The Council on American-Islamic Relations received notice of the probe by the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Board of Professional Responsibility in a June 7 letter, report the Tennessean and the Tullahoma News.
CAIR had filed an ethics complaint in May after Northcott made the statements about Muslims in a Facebook conversation. He asserted that Islam “is evil, violent and against God’s truth,” and Muslims “are evil because they profess a commitment to an evil belief system.”
“It is no different than being part of the KKK, Aryan Nation, etc. If you support those viewpoints, you are rightly and readily condemned in our society,” Northcott wrote. “However, it is now politically incorrect to take a stand against Islam that has the same core of hate. I do not hate the individual, but I will not be cowered into pretending that their belief system is legitimate or one of peace.”
More than 200 Nashville lawyers also sought an ethics investigation, citing Northcott’s anti-Muslim statements as well as Northcott’s statements on domestic assault prosecutions, made on a video unearthed after CAIR’s complaint.
In the 2018 video of his speech to pastors, Northcott said a domestic violence conviction carries enhanced punishment to recognize and protect the sanctity of marriage. But Northcott said he believes there is no marriage to protect in same-sex unions, so he doesn’t prosecute assaults in those relationships as domestic violence.
