Court of Appeals asked to defend Siegelman’s status while appealing

By Staff
Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has again asked the judge who sentenced former Gov. Don Siegelman for a more detailed explanation of why he refused to let Siegelman remain free on bond while the former governor appeals his conviction.
In an apparent rush to throw Siegelman in shackles and denying the former governor to even say goodbye to his family following his sentencing, the judge, Mark E. Fuller, a district judge in the Middle District of Alabama, failed to rule on the motion for release, gaveling down Siegelman’s lawyer when she pressed him for a ruling.
Siegelman then applied to the appeals court for his release pending appeal, and the appellate judges in reviewing the record, found that Fuller had never even made a ruling on the motion. They sent the matter back to him for a ruling, ordering an explanation for his decision. The two judges who wrote Fuller for the explanation were Stanley Marcus, a Clinton appointee and Susan Black, an appointee of George H. W. Bush.
Following that request over a month ago, Fuller sent the appeals court a brief reply saying that Siegelman had not shown that he had a substantial chance of winning his case on appeal. Former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy, also sentenced by Fuller, has also applied for release under bond, but the appeals court has yet to take up his motion.
Not satisfied with that answer, Marcus and Black sent the case back to Fuller again this past week, demanding a more detailed explanation.
In an interview with the Associated Press following the trial, Robert Sigler, a retired criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama Law School, said that it is “extraordinarily unusual for people like (Siegelman and Scrushy) not to be allowed to remain free and given a reporting date or an appeals bond.” Sigler said it appears that the two were rushed off to prison to ensure that they would receive some punishment, even if their convictions were overturned on appeal. Otherwise, he said, “they might have never gone to prison.”
Questions raised about Judge’s business interests
While Judge Fuller was presiding over the Siegelman/Scrushy trial, a business, Doss Aviation, Inc., in which he holds the controlling interest as he sits as a federal jurist, received $200 million in contracts from the Department of Defense.
One, a 10-year contract which totals $178.22 million contains an annual renewal clause, which makes his company totally dependent on the U. S. Government, Recently I disclosed this contract, but since then I have found that Doss Aviation added an additional $21 million in DOD contracts during the time he was judging the Siegelman/Scrushy case.
The company also has other contracts involving the Department of Justice, the prosecutors in the Siegelman/Scrushy case. Yet, Judge Fuller, in apparent disregard for any degree of fairness, never disclosed this conflict, which sits like a hammer over the head of his business interests, to the lawyers for the defendants. Fuller even ruled against a motion to recuse himself from the case.
Also, according to court records, has he has never disclosed this conflict to lawyers in other cases before him, some who might represent matters involving the Department of Defense or Department of Justice.
It is also interesting that Fuller never revealed to defense lawyers that he had been a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, which participated in campaigns against Siegelman.
I should reveal to the readers of this column that my newspaper (The Montgomery Independent) endorsed Bob Riley over Don Siegelman in 2002, primarily because I felt there was corruption in the Siegelman administration. However, after a great deal of research, I believe that the actions of the federal court in the Middle District of Alabama and Judge Fuller continue to place a stain on our nation’s goal of "equal justice under the law."
John Grenier, state GOP veteran dies
In 1966 the Alabama GOP had to make a decision (a somewhat difficult one) about who would seek the governorship or challenge longtime U. S. Sen. John Sparkman.
My friend, Congressman Jim Martin from Gadsden, who had come within a eyelash of defeating U. S. Sen. Lister Hill in 1962 and rode to Congress on the Goldwater bandwagon of 1964, wanted to challenge Sparkman for the Senate, but the higher-ups in the state party thought the more cosmopolitan Grenier, a New Orleans transplant, should be the standard-bearer. Grenier got 39 percent of the vote, Sparkman, 60 percent.
The party baited Martin to run for governor, giving up his seat in Congress. As he has told me in later years: “It was the biggest mistake of my political career. Little did I know that my opponent would be Lurleen Wallace?” I believe Martin would have run a much closer race against Sparkman, but who knows?
Nonetheless, Grenier was a classy guy and a credit to politics in Alabama.
Bob Martin, editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent, has taken over The Alabama Scene from longtime political columnist the late Bob Ingram.