Alabama voters heading to the polls this November will decide who leads the state’s top law enforcement office, and the two candidates for attorney general are drawing sharp contrasts on issues ranging from police body camera policy to lingering questions surrounding former Gov. Robert Bentley’s resignation.
Republican incumbent Steve Marshall, who was appointed to the post in 2017, is seeking his first full term against Democratic challenger Joseph Siegelman, an attorney and son of former Gov. Don Siegelman. The two have offered differing views on the office’s role, the state’s prison crisis and a Mobile lawsuit over police body camera footage that has become a flashpoint in the campaign.
Siegelman has argued that Alabamians “don’t have confidence” in the state’s leadership in the wake of the investigation into Bentley, who resigned in 2017 amid a scandal involving a former political aide. Siegelman has pointed to the fact that Bentley appointed then-Attorney General Luther Strange to a U.S. Senate seat while Strange’s office was said to be investigating the governor, calling the arrangement “problematic.”
“The fact that there is even some suspicion over whether a deal was struck tells you it never should have happened,” Siegelman said. “There never should have been the need to ask these questions.”
Marshall, who took over the investigation after Strange departed for the Senate, has defended how the case was ultimately handled. He recused himself from the matter, a special prosecutor was appointed, and Bentley resigned about six weeks later. Marshall has acknowledged, however, that grand jury secrecy laws mean the public may never get a full accounting of what happened.
“I don’t know that people will ever know,” Marshall said, adding that while he cannot speak to others’ suspicions, he can only vouch for his own conduct. “I wasn’t offered anything to take the job and I didn’t get anything to take the job.”
Marshall said there is no evidence Strange did anything criminal, though when asked whether Strange’s actions were ethical, he suggested the outcome of the special Senate election that followed — which Strange lost — might answer that question on its own.
Siegelman, campaigning on the slogan “people not politics,” has said he wants to make the attorney general’s office nonpartisan. “In my view the attorney general’s office is a nonpolitical office,” he said. “The No. 1 responsibility is to apply the laws of the state and the country fairly and impartially.”
Marshall, a former district attorney, said his background prosecuting cases drew him to seek the appointment when it opened up. “When the opportunity came, I expressed an interest in the appointment,” he said. “I’ve had the job for 18 months and it’s a fascinating place to practice.” He defeated former Attorney General Troy King in a July Republican runoff before advancing to the general election.
Locally, the race has taken on added significance in Mobile, where a judge last month ordered the city to release police body camera footage from a 2016 incident in which several teenagers were pepper-sprayed by a Mobile police officer. The ruling came after a local Fox affiliate sued for access to the footage, touching off a broader debate among city leaders over when such recordings should be made public. Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s office has since asked the attorney general’s office for a formal opinion on the matter.
Siegelman said decisions on releasing body camera footage should be made on a “case-by-case basis,” adding that he believes the cameras help build trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve.
Marshall said he sees no meaningful distinction between the high-profile Mobile case and an ongoing, less publicized murder investigation in the city, and suggested the Legislature should take up the broader question of when body camera footage should be released. He said the cameras have received “very positive reviews” from law enforcement agencies statewide, both as evidence-gathering tools and as a way to cut down on citizen complaints against officers.
The candidates also sparred over how to address chronic overcrowding in Alabama’s prisons. Marshall said diversion programs and other initiatives have helped bring the state’s prison population down from roughly 190 percent of capacity before he took office to about 150 percent today. “I’m not saying that we’ve made it to where it needs to be,” he said.
Marshall credited drug courts, veterans’ courts and similar diversion programs for the improvement, along with a change in state law that made simple drug possession a Class D felony, allowing more offenders to be routed into diversion courts rather than prison. He also pointed to steps taken during his tenure to improve conditions inside the state’s correctional facilities.
Siegelman agreed the attorney general’s office alone cannot solve prison overcrowding, but said diversion programs could be expanded further in appropriate cases. “There are people in prison who need to stay in prison,” he said. “In other circumstances, we need to see whether diversion programs can be used. We also need to provide rehabilitation services.”
Without adequate rehabilitation and mental health services, Siegelman said, prisons end up “warehousing drug addicts” and people with untreated mental illness, which drives up recidivism and further strains state resources. He said expanding the state’s mental health courts would help keep more of those patients out of jail in the first place.
Marshall said he, too, wants the attorney general’s office to take a bigger role in litigation touching on the mental health side of the prison system, noting that the Alabama Department of Corrections has effectively become the state’s largest provider of mental health care.
Both candidates say they have been encouraged by feedback on the campaign trail as fundraising has picked up heading into the fall. Marshall reported $7,400 in cash contributions in July with $41,543 on hand, then saw his fundraising surge after defeating King in the mid-July runoff, bringing in $105,725 in August for a month-end balance of $119,417.
Siegelman has raised more overall in recent months, taking in $78,410 in July to end that month with $147,990 on hand, followed by $70,599 in August contributions and a month-end balance of $162,121. Siegelman has also accused Marshall of accepting “dark money” through a PAC-to-PAC transfer and said an ethics complaint has been filed over the contribution. Marshall said the transfer came from the Republican Attorneys General Association and that he believes it fully complied with state law.
Marshall and Siegelman are scheduled to face off at the ballot box on Tuesday, Nov. 6.