BAY MINETTE — David Whetstone, the longest-serving elected Republican prosecutor in Alabama, was three months into a fresh six-year term as Baldwin County district attorney in April 2005 when he sat down for a wide-ranging interview and declined, at considerable length, to say whether he intended to serve it.
"Yes, I will say there are rumors circulating," Whetstone acknowledged. "Some of ’em are true and some of ’em are not true."
He was 60. His state retirement was fully vested. He had maxed out on salary five years earlier and described himself, only half joking, as working for a small fraction of what he was worth. Offers had arrived from the private sector. Other opportunities beckoned in public life. And, as he put it more than once, "It’s nice to have options."
Why the timing mattered
The calculation was not purely personal. Under Alabama law, a vacancy in a district attorney’s office is filled by gubernatorial appointment, and in 2005 the governor was Republican Bob Riley — whose own political future beyond the 2006 election was, at that moment, widely regarded as uncertain. A prosecutor who wanted a say in choosing his own successor had a narrow and closing window in which to exercise it.
Whetstone did not put it quite so bluntly, but he did not have to. If a Republican administration left Montgomery, so would his influence over who inherited the office he had run since 1984.
Still, he insisted no departure was imminent. If he were easing toward the door, he said, he would not be preparing to try a capital murder case himself in May; he would be handing that kind of draining, months-long assignment to an assistant.
Who might follow him
Pressed on succession — and repeatedly noting that "the job ain’t open" — Whetstone allowed that if he retired that day, his personal choice would be his veteran chief assistant district attorney, Judy Newcomb.
"What I would ask, if I were to decide to leave, would be that whomever is appointed be a person obviously with character, integrity and experience," he said. "It would be hard to start off as district attorney with no experience."
Two other names were circulating at the time:
- Mitzi Theodora, a more recent addition to the district attorney’s staff and the daughter of Baldwin County Sheriff Jimmy Johnson.
- David York, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, who was building a house on the Eastern Shore. York, a former Mobile County prosecutor who had run unsuccessfully for district attorney in Mobile before President George W. Bush appointed him, said he intended to remain in the federal post for the remainder of the administration’s second term.
"David York would be a wonderful candidate," Whetstone said. "He would be the type of person I’m referring to, the quality and experience."
Not attorney general
One rumor he dismissed outright was that he might run for attorney general. Any reporter willing to pull his campaign finance disclosures in Montgomery, he noted, would see immediately that his fundraising was not the fundraising of a man preparing a statewide campaign.
Geography was part of it. "I live in Gulf Shores," he said. "I’m in Bay Minette probably two days a week. It’s a big county. Getting around it wears you out." Baldwin County is the largest county by land area in Alabama, and its district attorney logs the miles to prove it.
He was equally clear that he would not walk away from a troubled office. "I would not leave a sinking ship," he said. "The captain goes down with it." Any departure, he said, would require a balancing act: a competent successor, an office in good order and the right opportunity arriving at the right time.
The he-coon
Asked to describe his standing in Baldwin County, Whetstone reached for a phrase with a long history in Southern politics.
"Yeah, I’d say I’m the he-coon now," he said. "When the dogs are chasing the coons, the he-coon is the leader. He turns and faces off the dogs while the other coons run to safety. He gets to be the he-coon based on longevity. I was one of the ones who ran away 21 years ago."
The practical consequence, he said, was that his office fielded calls about everything under the sun — road repair, taxes, matters with no conceivable connection to criminal prosecution. When he left, he predicted, Sheriff Jimmy Johnson would inherit the title and the phone calls with it.
For all the talk of exits, Whetstone sounded like a man in no hurry. "I like going to court," he said. "I like wrestling with Hollywood. I’m a Don Quixote-like guy. I like windmills. I like to attack ’em."
Whetstone had led the Baldwin County District Attorney’s office since 1984. In 2005, with a new term barely begun, he was saying only that he would not leave while he was still on top — and that he was, for the moment, still on top.