A former Prichard City Council president was set to be arraigned on a first-degree perjury charge stemming from a dispute over where she actually lived, according to Mobile County court records. Earline Martin-Harris, 52, faced the felony charge before Mobile County Circuit Court after prosecutors said her sworn testimony conflicted with statements made in a federal bankruptcy filing.
Martin-Harris was first elected to the Prichard City Council in 2000 and had built a reputation as, in her own words, a “rising star” in Mobile County politics. She stepped down from her council seat after Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich petitioned for a trial to determine her true residence.
The dispute centered on two addresses: a home on North William Avenue in Prichard and a house on Wilson Avenue in Daphne. According to the indictment, Martin-Harris testified before the Mobile County Probate Court that she lived at the Prichard address and had never lived in Daphne. But a May 2013 federal bankruptcy filing listed the Daphne address as her residence and stated she had vacated the Prichard property. Prosecutors said one of the two statements had to be false.
Martin-Harris went to probate court to appeal a ruling by the Mobile County Board of Registrars that determined she could not vote in Prichard because she was considered a Daphne resident. She maintained that she has always lived in Prichard, pointing to a separate section of her own bankruptcy paperwork listing the Prichard address, a valid driver’s license showing the same address, and a letter from family members identifying her as caretaker of the Prichard home. She acknowledged that her husband and two children lived in the newer Daphne house, built in 2012, but said that did not change her own legal residence.
“I can have two separate houses, I can own different properties,” Martin-Harris said. “There is no law preventing me from buying 50 houses.”
She characterized the prosecution as political retaliation, saying she had since been denied the ability to vote on multiple occasions and was refused a pistol permit by the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office rejected any suggestion of a political motive, saying Prichard residents raised concerns that Martin-Harris did not meet the city’s residency requirements for representing them on the council.
The case highlighted ongoing tension in Prichard over representation and eligibility requirements for elected office, issues that have surfaced repeatedly in the small Mobile County city’s municipal government over the years.