Few appointments in Alabama carry more quiet consequence than the three U.S. attorney posts, and in the spring of 2009 the process of filling them has become considerably more complicated than a change of administration would suggest.
The Southern District, headquartered in Mobile, remains unfilled. So does the Middle District in Montgomery. And in both cases, the early favorites have not held their position.
The Nicrosi Question
Michel Nicrosi of Mobile had been widely regarded as the heavy favorite for the Montgomery job — a return to her hometown as U.S. attorney for the Middle District.
Her credentials were not in doubt. A former assistant in the U.S. attorney’s office in Mobile, she once headed the office’s criminal section.
Yet speculation in Montgomery has since shifted toward Joseph P. Van Heest. A recent column in the Montgomery Independent suggested the selection process there has been riddled with intrigue — and that the implications are trickling south, potentially affecting the Mobile appointment as well.
The Mobile Field
For the Southern District post in Mobile, four names continue to draw mention: Vicki Davis, Pat Sims, Kenyon Brown and Nicrosi herself.
The Mobile job is not a ceremonial one. The Southern District covers the Port of Mobile and the Gulf Coast, which means narcotics interdiction, maritime and customs enforcement, and public corruption cases that reach into county courthouses and municipal governments. Whoever takes it inherits an office that has been at the center of significant local prosecutions.
Where the Process Went Smoothly
Birmingham stands as the exception. In the Northern District, Joyce Vance led the field from start to finish without visible hitch, though she has not yet been confirmed.
Vance is the daughter-in-law of Robert Vance, the federal judge and Alabama Democratic figure who was assassinated by a mail bomb in 1989 — a name that still carries considerable weight in Alabama legal circles.
A Candidate Who Passed
James Anderson, the Montgomery attorney now weighing a run for state attorney general, was among the applicants for the Middle District post. Indications are that he is not in the mix.
Anderson said he was urged to submit his name but did not actively campaign for the appointment. The prospect held some appeal, he acknowledged: either way, as a state or federal prosecutor, you are “jousting at windmills and chasing bad guys.” The difference is that the federal job lets you do it without asking your friends for $1 million.
That last observation is not a throwaway. It explains a great deal about why the U.S. attorney appointments matter to the state’s political class. A U.S. attorney gets the prosecutorial authority without the fundraising, the campaign consultants or the ballot. The appointment is made in Washington, on the recommendation of the state’s senators and the administration, and the people who want it must run a very different sort of race — one conducted almost entirely out of public view.
Which is precisely why, when the early favorite in Montgomery is suddenly no longer the favorite, people in Mobile pay attention.