A Mobile County jury on Thursday found school board member David Thomas guilty in the impeachment proceeding brought against him, ending a trial that had transfixed the county’s legal and political circles less for the charges than for the identity of one of the twelve people who decided them.
The verdict came at about 11:30 a.m., after nearly four hours of deliberation spread over two days. The jury’s foreman was Chris Galanos, the former Mobile County district attorney and former circuit judge — a man who has spent much of his professional life on the other side of the jury box.
A grand jury’s nine allegations
The proceeding grew out of a local grand jury’s call, weeks earlier, for Thomas to be impeached. The grand jury cited nine allegations against the commissioner. The most widely discussed was the charging of $9,033 in Mardi Gras throws to the Mobile County school system — an expense that, in a county where Carnival is close to a civic religion, proved impossible to explain away quietly.
Under Alabama law, certain local elected officials may be removed from office through an impeachment trial held in circuit court, with a jury sitting in judgment and a unanimous verdict required. The case was tried before Presiding Circuit Judge Charlie Graddick. Testimony began April 25. Thomas was represented by defense attorney Don Briskman. The state’s case was handled by the office of District Attorney John Tyson, with prosecutor Nicki Patterson — who once worked as an assistant district attorney under Galanos — taking a leading role.
The juror everybody was talking about
The panel began as fourteen. Two members, both women, were excused, reportedly after remarking on the likelihood of a hung jury. Their departure left exactly the twelve needed to seat the body — and it lifted Galanos from what had been widely assumed to be an alternate’s chair into a deciding vote.
That elevation set off days of speculation among attorneys and political operatives, who could not agree on which side had blundered by leaving him on the panel. The conventional wisdom in jury selection holds that lawyers, paralegals and others steeped in the courts make risky jurors, because their colleagues in the jury room may simply defer to them. Galanos was not merely a lawyer. He was a former prosecutor, a former judge and a public figure whose opinions had been aired in Mobile for decades.
Opinions ran in every direction. Federal prosecutor Gloria Bedwell, once an assistant district attorney under Galanos, called it a two-edged sword: “Either each side thought he would be more inclined toward their particular view of the evidence, or each side thought the other would strike him.” Because Galanos had represented the state, represented defendants and served as a judge, she said, “it is difficult to predict what his natural inclination would be.”
Veteran attorney Tommy Boller reasoned that the technical burdens of an impeachment case “may be more readily appreciated (and respected) by a lawyer,” and predicted the defense had made the better choice. Attorney Ronnie Williams agreed, arguing that with Galanos seated, the state would be forced to prove that Thomas intended to commit a wrongful act rather than simply show sloppy bookkeeping that the board and staff, including Superintendent Harold Dodge, might have caught before the money went out the door.
Others thought the state had taken the greater risk. Defense attorney Dennis Knizley, who once ran against Galanos for district attorney, warned that a juror of such standing “could potentially dominate the deliberations and be in essence a one-man jury.” Attorney Pete Burns predicted, accurately as it turned out, that Galanos “will probably be offered the foreman position.”
Trial lawyer Pete Mackey offered the practitioner’s caution: a public figure on a jury always means somebody is taking a chance, but selection begins with a venire of nearly thirty people and turns on how they answer questions under voir dire. “Once it’s over, you may pause and consider everything and decide to leave a person on,” he said. Attorney Willie Huntley, who has prosecuted, defended and served as a municipal judge, called it “a shrewd move by Briskman” — adding that just how shrewd remained to be seen.
The answer
The jury supplied its own answer within days. Thomas was convicted, and the man whose presence had been debated in every courthouse hallway in Mobile signed the verdict as foreman.