While top-of-the-ticket races like the gubernatorial and attorney general contests grab the headlines, one dramatic electoral battle in Jefferson County is flying under the radar with just 15 days left until the November 6 general election.
Incumbent Judge Teresa Pulliam faces a challenge from Birmingham-area attorney Linda Hall for Circuit Judge Place 16 on the 10th Circuit. Pulliam is the only countywide Republican remaining in office besides Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale.
While that would normally be an intriguing storyline in itself, the race has exploded with allegations surrounding Hall that not even Hollywood could make up.
However, the biggest issue is seemingly cut and dry: Hall does not even live in Jefferson County and thus would be ineligible to run for or hold the important judgeship. This matter will be ruled upon by Monday afternoon by Judge Samuel Junkin of Fayette County, after all Jefferson County judges recused themselves from a legal challenge to Hall’s candidacy by a concerned voter.
The pending lawsuit alleges that Hall lives in Shelby County and has not recently lived in Jefferson County for the legally required period of 12 months.
“I would not have ran if I knew that I lived in Shelby County,” Hall admitted during testimony Friday.
While she has resorted to claiming her office in Jefferson County is actually her residence, court proceedings revealed a shocking state of residency for the Democratic judicial candidate. Over the past 18 months, Hall has lived in five different apartment complexes in the Birmingham metro area, plus several extended stay hotels. She even lived in St. Louis, Missouri, from August – December 2017, again bouncing around from hotel to hotel.
While this information would almost certainly prove that Hall does not meet the consecutive 12-month requirement, her qualification paperwork to run for office outed her as not being a Jefferson County resident, too.
She incorrectly listed a Jefferson County zip code associated with a P.O. box on her submissions to the Alabama Ethics Commission and Alabama Democratic Party, but the physical address Hall listed turns out to be in Shelby County. Hall claims she listed the P.O box zip code in Homewood because she did not know the correct zip code to the listed apartment she was residing in at that time.
Not only was the apartment on her qualification paperwork located in Shelby County, but so were two of the three subsequent apartments she lived in. In fact, Hall only just moved to a Jefferson County address earlier this month after the lawsuit had already been filed.
The voter suing Hall has said that since ballots for the upcoming election have already been printed and absentee ballots already mailed, the correct remedy for the situation is for Hall to be disqualified, with her votes not being counted. On the other hand, Hall’s attorneys claim she has met the residency qualifications.
While the residency issue alone should determine Hall’s ability to have her votes counted or not, many in Jefferson County have pointed out that her qualifications, in a more practical sense, also need strict scrutiny. When it comes to her legal background, a survey by the objective Birmingham Bar Association revealed that a clear plurality of the voting lawyers view Hall as “unqualified” to be a circuit judge, compared to 90 percent who rank Pulliam as “highly qualified” and an additional six percent who see the Republican as “qualified.” Zero percent ranked Pulliam as “unqualified,” with four percent indicating they did not know enough about her.
Then, when it comes to Hall’s overall background and her own well-documented history of run-ins with civil and criminal litigation, truth is often stranger than fiction.
An ongoing appeal from one of Hall’s former clients details allegations of her being mentally ill, including that Hall once told people she had “supernatural powers” and frequently tried to ward off evil, per Alabama Media Group. Even prominent liberal columnist John Archibald has written about Hall’s alleged exploits, from claiming she could conjure the dead and filling bathtubs up to ward off evil spirits to putting talismans around her home, constructing an alter with candles for the supernatural and pouring salt around her house to keep demons away.
In response to these allegations by her former client, Hall’s own attorney claimed it was a politically motivated attack and that the allegations “are unsubstantiated and, and many instances, irrelevant to the [former client’s appeal].”
Additionally, with an individual who has admitted to bouncing from rundown residence to residence and is in seemingly dire financial straits, some people have privately worried that Hall could be a prime target to be compromised by bribery or other illicit means.
While all of these allegations should be vetted by voters individually if Hall is somehow not disqualified on Monday, it is important to remember how important judges are on the success of local communities. For a city facing massive violent crime problems, Birmingham cannot afford to have a judge that is not up for the job. The ramifications will be felt on communities and businesses if Hall is elected and cannot, in fact, uphold the duties of this important office.
Yellowhammer News’ inquiry to Alabama Democratic Party chair Nancy Worley regarding Hall’s candidacy has gone unreturned.
Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
