MOBILE, Ala. (CN) — No one in the packed ceremonial courtroom at Mobile County Government Plaza Friday morning could argue Alabama’s newest circuit court judge isn’t highly qualified for the job.
Vicki Davis has spent the past two decades prosecuting federal crimes with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Alabama, where she has served as chief of the office's criminal division, senior litigation counsel and chairperson of the diversity committee. In 2022 she was appointed to investigate concerns and complaints with the November general election.
Davis graduated from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in 1987. Admitted to the state bar the following year, she became assistant district attorney in Mobile County. In 1999 she was tapped by the state’s last Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, to fill a vacancy on Mobile County’s district court; then, after losing reelection to a Republican challenger by fewer than 100 votes less than a year later, she joined the U.S. attorney's office.
She has also been a legal adviser to the city of Mobile’s police department, an associate in a civil law firm and municipal judge for the city of Prichard.
The seat on Mobile County’s circuit court that Davis now occupies opened in January, upon the sudden, unexpected death of Judge James Patterson, not long after he had been censured for making racist, sexist and ageist remarks on the bench.
Republican Governor Kay Ivey chose Davis out of three nominees tapped by the Mobile County Judicial Nominating Commission.
“I have made honesty and integrity a priority in my administration, and I know that you will embody these two virtues while serving the people of Alabama,” Ivey wrote in a June letter to Davis announcing her appointment. “The responsibility that comes with this appointment is not to be taken lightly. I trust that you will rise to the occasion and set a standard for others to follow.”
In a county where more than 36% of the population is Black and more than 50% of county inmates are Black, there hasn’t been a Black circuit judge in more than 15 years. In brief comments after she was sworn in Friday, however, Davis downplayed the significance of her race in winning the appointment, and said many Black attorneys simply pursue other interests.
“Not every attorney wants to be a judge, so first you have to have that desire,” she said. “But I think there is a pathway for any Black attorney who has the desire and the connections and the mentorships and the persistence.”
Robert Clopton Sr., president of the Mobile Chapter of the NAACP, said the disproportionately low number of Black judges in Alabama “absolutely should be an issue of concern.”
“It’s become the status quo unfortunately that Black attorneys rarely seek judgeships or rarely are appointed, but with the diversity of this city and state, it’s a problem that needs to someday be rectified,” he said by phone Friday.
Clopton pointed to Republican gerrymandering as one reason for the disparity. And he said when major law firms recruit young, talented attorneys for lucrative positions as associates or partners, people of color specifically may be courted to meet diversity, equality and inclusion goals.
Lack of diversity in the U.S. judiciary is widespread: There are no Black appellate court judges in 24 states, according to data from the Brennan Center for Justice. Alabama is among 18 states where no justices identify as a person of color, even though in 12 of those states, people of color comprise at least 20% of the population. Nearly 27% of Alabamians identified as Black in the 2020 Census.
Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, a Black attorney who now works in private practice employment law, led a committee that unsuccessfully nominated Vicki Davis as U.S. Attorney in 2009.
“There is one word for the dearth of Black appellate judges and for that matter Black federal judges in Alabama: indefensible,” he wrote via email Friday.
Alabama’s two Republican senators have refused to endorse “talented Black candidates” that Congresswoman Terri Sewell nominated to the open federal seats in the judiciary, he said.
“There are numerous talented Black lawyers who are apolitical, have no record of partisanship, and who have defended Alabama's leading corporations and therefore have ‘pro-business’ credentials," the former congressman said, "who could and should have been groomed by Republicans for statewide appointments or to seek open seats on the state's appellate courts.”
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