Alabama Supreme Court Justice Glenn Murdock announced Thursday he will resign effective Jan. 16 to purse “other professional opportunities,” telling Yellowhammer News he is interested in a possible Senate run.
Murdock’s letter to Gov. Kay Ivey made no mention of politics. But he has been mentioned as a possible Republican challenger to Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) when he comes up for election to a full six-year term in 2020.
“I am interested in that and don’t know when that might be, in three years or five years,” he said in an interview. “I’m concerned about the nation and some of the things that are happening in our country.”
Murdock offered a preview of some of the issues he might run on if he opts for a Senate race — helping to boost economic growth, repealing Obamacare, preventing illegal immigration and strengthening the military. He said he also is troubled by a declining respect for traditional values.
“As someone who’s a father and a grandfather, that concerns me, as well,” he said.
Murdock, 61, is a Christian conservative first elected in 2000 to a seat on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals after an unsuccessful run for Supreme Court justice two years earlier. He won election to the state’s high court in 2006 and re-election in 2012.
The Enterprise native had expressed interest in the Senate seat after now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned to join President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. But then-Gov. Robert Bentley appointed Luther Strange instead.
In addition to eyeing a possible political campaign, Murdock said he will also consider options outside of politics, such as business or practicing law.
Murdock would have been up for re-election this November. By leaving now, he gives himself plenty of time to set up a campaign for the Senate — if that is what he chooses to do — and build name recognition free from the distractions of a demanding job as Supreme Court justice.
Murdock said it also allows him to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
“I feel like you can more freely and ethically discuss those things if you’re not a sitting justice,” he said.
During his tenure, Murdock wrote a landmark ruling in 2009 laying out a detailed definition for what constituted bingo. The decision gave then-Gov. Bob Riley the green light to target electronic bingo casinos that had been operating under unsettled legal authority.
Murdock joined his colleagues on the all-Republican Supreme Court in 2015 in denying a request by Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to review then-Chief Justice Roy Moore’s administrative order directing state officials to ignore a federal judge’s order striking down a ban on same-sex marriage. The eight justices — Moore recused himself — concluded that only the governor or Legislature could ask for such a review.
Later that year, Murdock also joined the other justices in ordering probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Ultimately, of course, the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage legal everywhere in the country.
Murdock has not been afraid to dissent on occasion, sometimes even by himself. He was the only dissenting justice from a 2015 ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Alabama Accountability Act, which allows some students to use tax credits to attend private schools. Murdock concluded that lawmakers improperly passed the law by largely rewriting a bill that previously had passed a conference committee of the House and Senate.
In 2016, Murdock was on the losing end of a 4-3 ruling against a Mobile man who was trying to gain custody of his son after discovering that the child’s mother had faked his death while planning to give him up for adoption. The majority determined that the man could not appeal on those grounds because he had not raised the issue at trial.
Murdock disagreed in a blistering dissent.
“Not only do his actions confirm (the father’s intentions), but the mother’s actions in concocting her deceit as to the child’s death confirms that she believed the father was seriously interested in pursuing his relationship with his child and would not be in favor of the adoption,” he wrote. “And, though I am not at all suggesting the adoptive parents share the mother’s guilt as to the fraud she committed against the father, the adoptive parents nevertheless knew that the father was not ‘unknown’ when they filed their petition.”
Murdock said that when he looks back on his judicial career, it is more than any single case or ruling.
“I can’t pick just one thing. There are thousands of cases,” he said, estimating the total number at about 20,000.
Instead, Murdock said, he focuses on how he conducted himself on the job.
“You’ve got to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know everything you did was right, without conscious bias,” he said. “I just tried to do what was right.”
Ivey will appoint a replacement for Murdock. That person would serve until the regular general election in November.
Brendan Kirby is senior political reporter at LifeZette.com and a Yellowhammer contributor. He also is the author of “Wicked Mobile.” Follow him on Twitter.
