Despite their lifetime appointments and near limitless power, federal judges typically escape meaningful scrutiny from the media or public. Serious attention is typically for reserved Supreme Court justices, in spite of the fact that the average person is significantly more likely to be impacted by a federal judge sitting on one of the lower courts.
The paucity of interest in these appointments allows them to ordinarily fly under the radar. This has allowed a host of unfit and unqualified appointees to assume positions on the federal bench where they are vested with unimaginable power. Their actions may be attributed to malice, sloth, or ignorance, but the potential for a federal judge to inflict harm is nearly limitless.
Appellate Judge William Pryor has been described as the “most controversial” of George W. Bush’s staunchly conservative appointments
Strictly conservative and rabidly anti-gay William H. Pryor, Jr., currently seated on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, was recently outed when nude photos of a young Pryor appeared on badpuppy.com, one of the largest gay pornography sites on the internet. A full frontal nude photo depicts a noticeably aroused, younger, college age Pryor. Pryor’s career has been full of controversy both on and off the federal bench. He initiated the politically motivated investigation into former Alabama governor Don Siegelman while serving as the state’s attorney general. The investigation, which has been criticized by a plethora of legal and political observers, led to a federal trial and conviction for which Siegelman is currently incarcerated.
Despite unashamedly decrying homosexuals, a nude photo of a young Pryor appeared in a gay publication and was available online
The Siegelman investigation was widely seen as a political hit job orchestrated by operatives within the Bush White House. Siegelman was a highly successful Democratic politician, seemingly unable to be beaten at the polls. Despite his popularity with the voters of Alabama, his removal was sought by Karl Rove and his operatives. Previous Online Publishing Company articles detailing the Siegelman prosecution, as well as an interview with the former governor’s daughter may be seen here:
As is often the case with federal judicial appointments, Pryor’s appointment to the federal bench was a reward, in this instance for having acted in accordance with the Bush White House’s plot against Siegelman, a well-liked Democrat who repeatedly won statewide office in the otherwise reliably red state. Senate Democrats balked at Pryor’s appointment and repeatedly blocked his confirmation. Bush bypassed the confirmation process by installing Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit through a recess appointment. He was later confirmed by the U.S. Senate after an agreement was engineered by a moderate group of Republican and Democratic Senators.
Former governor Don Siegelman was targeted for removal by Karl Rove and his operatives in Alabama
There were questions raised at the time of Pryor’s recess appointment regarding the propriety of his installation via such means. One of the judges who would later sit on the federal appellate panel that upheld Siegelman’s conviction, Chief Judge J.L. Edmondson, had written the majority opinion upholding the legality of Bush’s use of a recess appointment for Pryor. Despite smacking of impropriety, the conflict did not rise to the level required for Judge Edmondson’s recusal when Siegelman’s appeal was heard.
Chief Judge J.L. Edmonson upheld Pryor’s recess appointment and subsequently ruled in favor of prosecutors on Siegelman’s appeal
Revelations regarding Pryor’s past recently came to light through Roger Shuler’s work at Legal Schnauzer, a blog dedicated to “fight against injustice.” Shuler has long been embroiled in legal battles with several political and judicial figures in Alabama. Pryor was contacted by Shuler via email and asked about the photos. The replay email simply stated “I have nothing to say to you except that these accusations are totally false. Do not contact me again.”
As Shuler pointed out, the query about the photos was not an accusation.
Shuler reports that “A prominent Alabama Republican took one look at photos from a gay porn web site in 1997 and shrieked, ’Holy cow, that’s Bill Pryor!’” The Legal Schnauzer article goes on to describe how the photos “disappeared the next day” from the site. Screen shots from the gay porn site, archived by the Alabama Bureau of Investigation on September 17, 1997, were preserved and reportedly have been the subject of an investigation.
Journalist Roger Shuler has worked tirelessly to uncover the massive corruption that envelops Alabama politics
Gay rights organizations have long opposed Pryor’s tenure on the court. Pryor has defended anti-sodomy laws and supported anti-gay marriage and anti-gay adoption legislation. He has written that “Sodomy is a chosen behavior unworthy of constitutional protection” and compared homosexuality to pedophilia, incest and corpse-raping. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said in a statement that “Pryor has repeatedly proven he is an ideological tyrant of the highest order. Pryor’s extremist views may resonate with the outer fringes, but they have no place on the federal bench. This is an American travesty.”
People for the American Way said that Pryor “would deny gay men and lesbians the equal protection of the laws. He believes that it is constitutional to imprison gay men and lesbians for expressing their sexuality in the privacy of their own homes and has voluntarily filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court urging the Court to uphold a Texas law that criminalizes such private consensual activity.” One could easily surmise that much in the style of Roy Cohen, Pryor has adopted an extremely homophobic persona to mask his personal proclivities.
Pryor’s work as a gay model poses serious question about his judicial propriety. Several articles have raised the specter of Pryor’s gay porn past being used to blackmail the judge and influence his rulings. Shuler theorizes that Pryor may have been forced to “participate in rulings that he knows are unlawful, at risk of his secrets being revealed.”
There may also be problems with Pryor’s apparent failure to disclose the existence and publication of the photos. Federal judicial nominees are asked to disclose any potentially embarrassing information in their backgrounds as part of the confirmation process. Pryor’s failure to fully disclose such information may rise to the level of an offense.
Shuler’s reporting on Pryor is part of a wider journalistic campaign he is waging against several Alabama officials. Aside from reporting prodigiously on the Siegelman matter, Shuler has recently set his sights on Rob Riley, son of former Alabama governor Bob Riley. Shuler reports that the younger Riley was involved in an extra-marital affair with lobbyist Liberty Smith Duke. Riley is a married father of four and heads the Riley Jackson Law Firm in the Birmingham. He has been a major Republican political figure in Alabama for almost two decades and has been active in his father's campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives and the Alabama Governor's Office.
Despite obvious ethical shortcomings, Rob Riley is now reportedly being groomed for a congressional campaign
The senior Riley was the beneficiary of blatant election theft that saw Siegelman lose an election in which he was previously declared to be the winner. Siegelman went to bed on election night believing he had won reelection as governor. Overnight, however, predominantly Republican Baldwin County reported that a “glitch” had improperly given Siegelman approximately 6000 extra votes. Once they were subtracted, Bob Riley was declared the winner by roughly 3000 votes. At a press conference the next morning, Siegelman pulled no punches. “Votes were changed after midnight with nobody present,” he charged. Siegelman’s efforts to have a state-wide recount were unsuccessful. It is widely believed that the highly questionable outcome was engineered by Karl Rove and his supplicants in Alabama.
Shuler claims that his recent reporting on Riley’s infidelity has resulted in various retributive acts aimed against him by Alabama officials, likely acting on direction from the younger Riley. He was the victim of an unusual service of court papers from Riley, conducted under the ruse of a sheriff’s traffic stop for a non-existent traffic infraction. The implications of such improper service are disturbing as it strongly implies that local law enforcement officials have been coopted and are being managed by Riley. Shuler’s suggestion of collusion appears to have merit.
It is interesting to note that the trumped-up federal prosecution of Siegelman emerges as the common thread running between the various players Shuler is a battling. Federal judicial appointments have long been bestowed upon glaringly unfit candidates as a reward, but what is going on in Alabama is shocking even by current standards. Allowing a homophobic former gay model to sit on the federal bench while the target of his injustice languishes in federal prison highlights a significant problem with the federal judiciary.
George W. Bush loaded the federal bench with a host of unfit candidates selected for both their youth and extreme views, guaranteeing that their insidious impact would be felt for many years
Unfortunately, as blatantly unfit as he may be, Judge Pryor is likely to be sitting on the federal bench for decades to come, with his most egregious conduct possibly yet to be seen.
(Originally published at Online Publishing Company, www.onlinepublishingcompany.info)