Eleven lawyers seek judgeship
on local circuit court bench
By Chip Drago
Mobile Bay Times
Eleven Mobile attorneys have applied for the opening on the Mobile County Circuit Court bench created by the resignation of former Judge Herman Thomas.
Friday's noon deadline brought with it 11 applications for the vacancy, including:
- Angela Cooper, who has previously sought an appointment to the bench;
- Randy Crane, a veteran Mobile attorney and mediator who has been among the finalists in previous competitions for judicial vacancy;
- Duncan R. Crow, a longtime GOP attorney who lost to Circuit Judge Robert Smith in the Republican primary election to fill the judgeship formerly held by retired Judge Ferrill D. McRae;
- Mark Erwin, an assistant county attorney and chairman of the Mobile County Republican Party;
- Karlos Finley, an assistant district attorney and the only black applicant for the seat left open by the resignation of the circuit's only black judge;
- Don Foster, U.S. Attorney for the Southern Disrict of Alabama during the administrations of Bill Clinton;
- Walter Honeycutt, another previous judicial hopeful and the GOP nominee against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson in 2004;
- Brad Kittrell, a Mobile attorney and the son of former Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Braxton Kittrell, now retired from the bench and in private practice
- Barney March, another previous judicial applicant and a lawyer with the Johnstone Adams firm;
- E.J. Saad, a longtime Mobile attorney;
- Michael Youngpeter, an attorney in a private practice here.
Chaired by Mobile County Presiding Circuit Judge Charlie Graddick, a five-member judicial selection committee will interview the applicants over the next couple of weeks.
The committee will narrow the field to three finalists, one of whom Republican Gov. Bob Riley will likely appoint to the position. In the unlikely event that Riley delays his choice for more than 90 days, the appointment goes to the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Sue Bell Cobb, a Democrat.
Thomas resigned earlier this month under the weight of a burgeoning ethics complaint as well as an ongoing criminal investigation.
Ironically, Thomas had been chairman of the judicial selection committee.
Other members of the committee include attorneys Ken Nixon and Billy Bedsole, former Revenue Commissioner Freda Roberts and Sherry Moss.
"The public comment and interviewing process begins today and ends Nov. 9 at noon," said Graddick Friday afternoon. "We will then vote on who will be on the list of three to go to the governor."
Suspended since the spring when the JIC undertook its investigation, Thomas stepped down Oct. 1 just as the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission was poised to add on to the existing 30 charges of ethical misconduct against the veteran jurist.
However, state and perhaps federal authorities reportedly continue to investigate Thomas, who stood accused of using his office to favor friends, relatives and the politically connected as well as poaching cases from the dockets of his fellow judges in order to alter their rulings. Alienated from Thomas, his disgruntled brethren called on the JIC not to privately mediate any resolution with Thomas but to air all the charges in a public trial.
Thomas had been set for trial Oct. 29 before the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.
Thomas, 46, will be eligible to begin collecting retirement benefits at 60, according to Marc Reynolds with the Retirement Systems of Alabama. Thomas has a total of 20 years, three months in state service -- 17 years and six months on the bench and two years and nine months as an assistant district attorney. He continued to draw pay and contribute toward his retirement during his suspension.
Whomever is appointed to the opening will have to run in 2008 for election to remaining four years of the six-year term that Thomas won in 2006. Former Democratic Circuit Judge and District Attorney Chris Galanos confirmed his intention to seek a return to the bench.
In what perhaps may influence the process of choosing a successor to Thomas, the Mobile Bay Times also learned recently that another vacancy on the bench is likely to occur before year's end. Veteran Mobile County District Judge Judson Wells, 46, is reportedly entertaining offers to return to the private practice of law.
