Part-time city judgeship
attracts 17 applicants
By Chip Drago
Mobile Bay Times
Seventeen area attorneys have applied for a new part-time municipal judgeship with the city of Mobile.
The new post was created to handle the city's metro jail docket. Part-time city judges are paid $50,000 annually.
Applicants are:
- John Adams, a municipal judge in Prichard;
- Michael Box, who has been a state legislator and Chickasaw city attorney;
- Thomas Figures, a former assistant U.S. Attorney and current acting (also known as assistant or temporary) city judge for Mobile;
- W. Travis Grant, former assistant district attorney;
- Ronald “Chip” Herrington, a recent Democratic nominee for the juvenile circuit judgeship here;
- Tracie B. Lee, an attorney in private practice;
- Carol C. Little, the city's domestic violence prosecutor;
- Darlett Lucy, a former Prichard municipal judge;
- Melinda Lee Maddox, in private practice;
- Mark B. Murphree, in private practice;
- Ivan L. Parker, an attorney in private practice
- Virginia “Ginger” Parker, in private practice who is also bilingual, speaking fluent Spanish in addition to English;
- Claude E. Patton, a former Democratic nominee for the state criminal appeals court;
- Mary Catherine Parks Stone, who shares a private practice with former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas and James Brandeyburg;
- Russell S. Terry, in private practice;
- David Jennings Wible, a criminal prosecutor for the city;
- James D. Wilson III, a lawyer in private practice.
The Mobile City Council will interview the candidates for the new part-time municipal judge to oversee hearings at Mobile County Metro Jail.
The interviews will be conducted Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 15-16, according to Mobile City Clerk Lisa Lambert.
According to Holmes Whiddon, Mobile Municipal Court's presiding judge, the new position would handle three dockets a week at the jail. Among the judge's primary duties would be accepting pleas, both guilty and non guilty, the review of bond settings and amounts and the scheduling of trial dates when necessary.
As an assistant judge, Figures currently handles the jail docket.
Assistant judges are paid $395 per docket. If an assistant judge covered all three jail dockets every week of the year, the salary would be $61,620.
However, unlike $50,000 per year part-time judges, assistant judges do not receive health insurance.
The Mobile City Council names part-time judges. Assistant judges are appointees of Mayor Sam Jones.
In addition to Whiddon, the city has one other full-time municipal judge, Shelbonnie Hall. The city has two part-time judges, Rose McPhillips and Matt Green. They were all reappointed to two-year terms two months ago.
