The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama is a United States district court in the Eleventh Circuit.
The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is housed in the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building in downtown Montgomery,Alabama.
Thomas Ancil Balmer is a former justice and chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. A native of Washington,he was appointed to the court in 2001 as a justice,later serving as chief justice from 2012 to 2018. He retired on December 31,2022.
Kay Ellen Ivey is an American politician who is the 54th governor of Alabama,serving since 2017. Originally a conservative Southern Democrat,Ivey became a member of the Republican Party in 2002. She was the 38th Alabama state treasurer from 2003 to 2011 and the 30th lieutenant governor of Alabama from 2011 to 2017.
Lesbian,gay,bisexual,transgender,and queer (LGBTQ) individuals in the U.S. state of Alabama have federal protections,but still face legal challenges and discrimination on the state level that is not experienced by non-LGBT residents. LGBTQ rights in Alabama—a Republican Party stronghold located in both the Deep South and greater Bible Belt—are severely limited in comparison to other states. As one of the most socially conservative states in the U.S.,Alabama is one of the only two states along with neighboring Mississippi where opposition to same-sex marriage outnumbers support.
Barbara Lynn McQuade is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. As part of President Donald Trump's 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys,she stepped down in March 2017. She is a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School,the author of "Attack from Within" and a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. She also cohosts the podcast "Sisters in Law."
Craig F. Stowers was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice,and the 18th chief justice,of the Alaska Supreme Court. He was appointed by Governor Sean Parnell in 2009 as an associate justice to replace retiring Justice Robert Eastaugh. Stowers was one of seven candidates recommended to the Governor by the Alaska Judicial Council out of a record 25 applicants.
Tom Parker is an American lawyer serving as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court since 2019. He previously served as an associate justice on the court having been elected to that position in 2004 and re-elected in 2010.
James Allen Main is a former associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was initially appointed on January 14,2011,by Governor Bob Riley and elected to a six-year term in November,2012. He did not seek reelection in 2018 and retired from the court in January 2019. Prior to his appointment,he served on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.
Jacquelyn L. "Lyn" Stuart is an American jurist and the first Republican woman Chief Justice of Alabama and the second woman to hold the office. She was first appointed by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey as "acting" Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama on May 6,2016,when her predecessor,Roy Moore,was suspended from office. At the time of her initial appointment,she had been an associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court since 2001,which was the longest tenure for any Republican in the Court's history. She had been thrice elected as an associate justice in 2000,2006,and 2012.
Steven Troy Marshall is an American lawyer serving as the 48th attorney general of Alabama. He was appointed in February 2017 by Governor Robert J. Bentley to fill the vacancy created by previous attorney general Luther Strange's appointment to the United States Senate. He was elected to a full term in 2018,and was re-elected in 2022. He previously served as district attorney in Marshall County for 16 years.
Timothy Ivan Melson is an American politician and physician. A member of the Republican Party,he serves in the Alabama State Senate,representing its 1st district since 2014.
Gregory Thomas D'Auria is an American lawyer and judge who has served as an associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court since 2017. He previously was Solicitor General of Connecticut.
Brady Eutaw Mendheim Jr. is an American jurist who has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama since 2019.
Doyle Lee Hamm was an American death row inmate in Alabama,who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of Patrick Cunningham,whom he killed while committing a robbery. While on death row,Hamm developed lymphatic cancer,which made it difficult to impossible to achieve the venous access necessary to administer the drugs used in lethal injections. Despite months of warning by Hamm's attorney and human rights observers and a decades' long legal battle,the Alabama Department of Corrections attempted to execute Hamm on February 22,2018. The unsuccessful execution attempt lasted nearly three hours and drew international attention. In March 2018,Hamm and the state of Alabama reached a confidential settlement,the terms of which precluded a second execution attempt,giving Hamm a de facto sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole,although his sentence was not formally commuted. Hamm remained in prison until his death from cancer-related complications in 2021.
Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically,Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade,which legalized abortion nationwide. However,Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.
Jean Williams Brown is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama,serving from 1999 to 2005.
Balch &Bingham LLP is a United States law firm based in Birmingham,Alabama.
James LePage,et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association is a 2024 Alabama Supreme Court case in which the court held that frozen embryos should be considered as living beings,allowing for in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics to be held liable for the accidental loss of embryos under Alabama's Wrongful Death of a Minor law.
