In Birmingham, Holder Lobbied on Behalf of Siegelman
August 28th, 2009 |
by Glynn Wilson
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was lobbied to drop the case against former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman during his trip to Birmingham Thursday for the swearing in of Joyce White Vance as U.S. attorney for the state’s northern district, sources say.
Several people, including Alabama Democratic Party officials, spoke to Holder on behalf of Siegelman, and about firing U.S. Attorney Leura Canary — the prosecutor married to Karl Rove’s political ally Bill Canary of the conservative Business Council of Alabama — according to sources present for the swearing in.
Barry Ragsdale, an attorney who is a friend of the Vances and has been associated with the Over the Mountain Democrats in the past, acted as master of ceremonies for the swearing in. Apparently he is a funny guy, and made several jokes, including poking fun at Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller of Alabama’s middle district, the federal judge who presided in the controversial case against Siegelman and his co-defendant Richard Scrushy.
“I’m glad Karl Rove gave you permission to be here,” Ragsdale quipped, according to the Birmingham News account of the swearing in.
Rove, of course, was the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush, who recently testified in an investigation of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on political prosecutions and political firings of U.S. attorneys.
 |
| U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance |
Vance, who was chief of the Northern District’s appellate division from October 2005 until she was named interim U.S. attorney in June, first joined the Birmingham office as an assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting criminal cases, in 1991.
She replaces U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, who served a controversial term after being appointed to the office by President Bush. Vance was sworn in by U.S. District Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn, who recently replaced U.W. Clemon as the chief judge in Birmingham.
Vance graduated from Bates College in Lewiston Maine in 1982 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1985. After law school, she practiced with the litigation group at Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin, and Kahn in Washington, D.C., according to her official biography on the Justice Department Website.
Vance moved to Birmingham in 1987, where she joined Bradley, Arant, Rose, and White. She is married to Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance Jr., the son of Robert S. Vance, formerly a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who was one of two victims of pipe bombs sent to targets in Georgia, Alabama and Florida in the late 1980s.
Tags: Alabama, Alice Martin, Don Siegelman, Eric Holder, Joyce White Vance, Northern District, U.S. Attorney
September 29th, 2009 at 9:44 am
I hope Joyce Vance has at least some integrity, as she couldn’t be any where near as bad as former US Attorney — Alice H. Martin, who belongs in prison for a long time.
I personally retain proof-positive evidence against Alice Martin, that in a real world with genuine “Justice”, would get her a long-stretch.
However, Jefferson County, Alabama, state and federal Judiciary and lawyers, are, from my evidence, the most corrupt in the country. It will be interesting to see if Vance will buck the Status Quo of corruption at Birmingham, or just continue to cover-up the atrocious crap that goes on there. Not even Jeff Sessions will investigate the corrupt Birmingham system, where he has been presented with the proofs, and himself chooses to just ignore it. “Criminals in the cloaks of Justice” with “Honor” in front of their names, do much worse that most
of the criminals they send to prison, where guilt or innocence plays very little part in their outrageous decisions made for personal profit-and the preservation of criminal elements that are now “business as usual” in those courts-systems where Vance must distinguish herself.