Candidate Responses to Voter Guide Questions
Candidates were asked to provide answers to seven fundamental, nonpartisan questions for this voter guide. Candidates were asked not to make comparisons with any other candidate. Candidates were advised that their answers would be limited to 250 words per question. Each candidate's answers are reprinted verbatim here up to that word limit.
1. How have your training, professional experience, and interests prepared you to serve on the Alabama Supreme Court?
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I have practiced law in Alabama for over 30 years. I have represented citizens and tried their cases before Alabama juries in both civil and criminal courts.
I was elected to the Alabama state senate four times. I served from 1979 to 1994. As a state senator, I passed out of the Senate a resolution calling for a Constitutional Convention. I was responsible for introducing and passing Alabama’s first consumer protection law and the funding of shelters for abused spouses.
As a sitting Circuit Court Criminal judge, in the last six years I have disposed of over 5,000 cases. I have sentenced convicted murderers, rapists, drug dealers, child abusers and others to over 7,500 years in the state penitentiary. I once sentenced a convicted child rapist whose victim was his own daughter to 822 years to run consecutively in order to make sure this person would never be given the opportunity for early parole.
I established one of the few mental health courts in the state as an alternative to prison for those charged with “non-violent, non-sexual abuse” crimes. The purpose of this program is to divert mentally ill offenders from an overcrowded prison system to a program to treat a mental illness. The recidivism rate in this program has been close to zero.
I am known as a fair and impartial judge. I believe that “justice delayed is justice denied” and for courts to run efficiently, everyone in the system must carry their own weight and forget partisan politics. |
| 2. What do you consider to be the three most important attributes of a judge? |
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. A Supreme Court justice by definition must be impartial, unbiased and non-partisan. The obscene amounts of money funneled into judicial elections by special interests add to the perception that individual citizens will be left out by the Court. Alabama is one of only seven states with partisan judicial elections. The issue of non-partisan judicial elections must be addressed. |
| 3. What is your judicial philosophy? |
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Every morning when I get up I tell myself that, “Today, I am going to be good to good people and bad to bad people and the lawyers will have to look after themselves.” |
| 4. How do you define “judicial independence,” and how important is it to our judicial system? |
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An independent judiciary is of the utmost importance. The Court must avoid even the appearance that it is beholding to special interests that put huge amounts of money into judicial campaigns. In addition, the Court cannot appear to do the bidding of the governor and the executive branch or attempt to co-opt the lawmaking duties of the legislative branch. |
| 5. What is the greatest area of need in the Alabama justice system, and how should the Alabama Supreme Court respond, if at all? |
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The Supreme Court must restore Alabamians’ faith that an individual can get a fair hearing and the Court is truly working in their best interest. Public proceedings or oral arguments are now almost non-existent. If all the justices are pulling their own weight, there will more time for the court to hear oral arguments. I suggest that these proceedings take place publicly across the state in courthouses, colleges and law schools in effort to make the Court more transparent. Also, public forums in which candidates discuss judicial philosophy would help restore trust in the Court. |
| 6. What part, if any, should public opinion play in the decision of a judge? |
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Ideally, public opinion should play no part in the decision of a judge. That being said, neither can a judge live in a vacuum. A judge, just as any other citizen cannot help but be affected by the political, social and economic issues of the day. A judge has to decide every case on its own merits. A judge must look at the facts and apply the law. This application of law should be based upon the Alabama and U.S. Constitutions, statutory law and legal precedent. A judge must not create the law nor should one come to a conclusion, then try to shape the law to fit that end. |
| 7. In a case before the Court, how should a judge handle a conflict between his/her personal beliefs and the law? |
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All too often, a judge’s personal beliefs, agenda, ideology or partisanship gets in the way of the judge’s ability to render objective decisions. If his/her personal beliefs are in conflict with objectively deciding a case, a truly honest judge would recuse himself. In addition, judges will sometime try to use their position to try to advance their personal agenda or ideology and in doing fail to do their own work on the court fairly and expeditiously causing hardship to others on the Court. |
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