Bob Vance (jurist)

Bob Vance
Circuit Judge, Jefferson County, Alabama
Assumed office
November 4, 2002
Preceded by Arthur Hanes, Jr.
Personal details
Born Robert Smith Vance, Jr.
(1961-04-10) April 10, 1961
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Joyce White Vance
Children 4
Parents Robert Smith Vance
Helen Hauk Rainey
Alma mater Princeton University
University of Virginia

Bob Vance (born April 10, 1961) is an American lawyer and jurist who is a circuit court judge on Alabama's 10th Judicial Circuit, located in Birmingham, Alabama.[1]

Early life and education

Vance was born on April 10, 1961, in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of Law.[1] After law school, Vance clerked for Judge Tom Gee on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before starting work at the Birmingham law firm Johnston, Barton, Proctor and Powell as a litigator.[1]

Alabama Circuit Court Judge

Vance was first appointed to the bench to serve out the term of Judge Arthur Hanes in 2002 and subsequently elected to a full term. He was reelected in 2010, without opposition.[2]

In 2006, in Gooden v. Worley, a case that challenged the Alabama law that removed the right to vote from those convicted of felonies of moral turpitude, Vance ordered the state of Alabama to allow ex-felons to vote, holding that the law failed to identify the crimes that fit the definition.[3] Vance was reversed on appeal to the Supreme Court of Alabama.

Campaigns for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama

Vance ran unsuccessfully for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama in 2012.[4] He reluctantly entered the race in August 2012, after the former Democratic candidate Harry Lyon was disqualified from the ballot in large part due to erratic behavior and rants against gays and lesbians.[4][5] His opponent was former Chief Justice Roy Moore, who had previously been removed from the bench for failing to follow an order from the federal district court to remove a religious monument he had installed in the rotunda of the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building.[4] At the time Vance entered the race, there were no statewide elected Democrats in the state of Alabama.[6] Despite low expectations, Vance was barely defeated by Roy Moore in the general election on November 6, receiving 48.23% of the vote.[4]

In an editorial penned before the election, Moore wrote, "The true issue is whether we can acknowledge the sovereignty of Almighty God over the affairs of our state and our law.”[7]

The October before the election, Vance received endorsement in a letter signed by a highly respected line up of both Republican and Democratic current and former Supreme Court of Alabama Justices.[8]

Vance ran a TV ad featuring his two youngest children, Eleanor and Oliver, that focused on his low key, scholarly demeanor and showed the children admonishing him to "face it Dad, you're a nerd."[9]

Vance is running, again, for Chief Justice as a Democrat in 2018. In 2012, he had picked up an estimated 200,000 votes from white voters, but while running against alleged child molesting candidate Roy Moore, it just wasn't enough: Moore prevailed by 75,000 votes. In 2018, the challenge is coming from massive intentional disenfranchisement of non-white voters, a strategy made easier by the Supreme Court which, in its Shelby County v. Holder 5-4 decision, allowed jurisdictions with a history of suppression of minority voters to avoid continuing to abide by federal preclearance requirements for changes in voter registration and casting of ballots.[10] Within 24 hours of the ruling, Alabama implemented a 2011 law requiring specific types of photo I.D. to be presented. The state closed DMV offices in eight of ten counties which had the highest percentage black population, but only three in the ten counties with the lowest black population. In 2016, Alabama's Secretary of State (SOS) John Merrill began a process to require proof of citizenship from voters, despite Merrill not knowing of a single case where a non-citizen had voted. Voter purging is another method of disenfranchisement. It was done so aggressively in Alabama, that even four-term Republican Representative Mo Brooks who, in March 2018, was rated the House's least bipartisan member by The Lugar Center and who was a candidate for the seat relinquished by Jeff Sessions in 2017, found that he himself had been purged from the rolls. Merrill also refused to publicize the passage of legislation that enabled some 60,000 Alabaman former felons to vote.[11].[12] The new requirement regarding proof of citizenship, had been approved by federal Election Assistance Commission Director Brian Newby, an associate of voter disenfranchisement advocate Kansas SOS and Republican Gubernatorial nominee, Kris Kobach.[13]

Personal life

Vance is married to law school classmate Joyce White Vance, who served as United States Attorney in the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017. They have four children.

Vance's father was Judge Robert S. Vance on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was assassinated by Walter Leroy Moody, Jr. via mail bomb in 1989.[14] On December 16, 1989, Vance was assassinated at his home in Mountain Brook, Alabama, when he opened a package containing a mail bomb. Vance was killed instantly and Bob's mother, Helen, was seriously injured. The federal government charged serial bomber Walter Leroy Moody Jr. with the murders of Judge Vance and of Robert E. Robinson, a black civil-rights attorney in Savannah, Georgia, who had been killed in a separate explosion at his office. Moody was also charged with mailing bombs that were defused at the Eleventh Circuit's headquarters in Atlanta and at the Jacksonville office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Moody was sentenced to seven federal life terms, later tried by the state end executed.

Profile at the 10th Judicial Circuit, Jefferson County, Alabama

Bob Vance (jurist) on Twitter

References

  1. 1 2 3 "State of Alabama Unified Judicial System". Alabama.Gov. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  2. ↑ "Alabama Election Results". Clarity Elections. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "When does judicial meddling become "moral turpitude?"". A bama Blog.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Chandler, Kim. "'10 Commandments judge' Roy Moore wins his old job back". Faith Street. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Judge Vance Qualifies for Democratic Chief Justice Nomination". Alabama Political Reporter. Archived from the original on 27 September 2014. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  6. ↑ Newkirk, Margaret. "Ten Commandments Judge Battles Bomb Victim's Son in Alabama Race". Bloomberg. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  7. ↑ Unruh, Bob. "Judge Moore Wins". WND Faith. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  8. ↑ "Alabama Supreme Court Justices Agree: Vote for Bob Vance". Left in Alabama. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  9. ↑ Vance, Bob. "The Position". You Tube. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  10. ↑ Democrats aim for suburbs in Alabama ahead of Deep South votes, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greg Bluestein, November 18, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
  11. ↑ Seven Ways Alabama Has Made It Harder to Vote, New York Times, June 23, 2018. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
  12. ↑ "The Lugar Center - McCourt School Bipartisan Index; House Scores 115th Congress, 1st session (2017)". May 24, 2018. Retrieved June 3, 2018.
  13. ↑ EAC Director Brian Newby Tries to Sidestep Long-Settled Voter Protections, Campaign Legal Center, Harry Baumgarten & Danielle Lang, August 13, 2018. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Letter Bomb Kills US Judge". New York Times.
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