He wrote Alabama’s infamous habitual offender law, which punishes people with a life sentence for drug and property crimes.

However, those “career criminals” were mostly poor and Afro-american young males, who were sentenced in their late teens or early twenties to a mandatory life without parole for crimes like robbery, theft and burglary [1] Archived 2021-05-19 at the Wayback Machine In 2019, the DOJ released a scathing report, citing overcrowding, widespread violence and corruption in Alabama’s prisons, and gave leaders a deadline to implement changes.

He infamously promised to “fry them until their eyeballs pop out and smoke comes out of their ears.” He maintains a zealous support for executions, despite known wrongful convictions and a racial disparity on Alabama’s death row.

[3] Archived 2021-05-19 at the Wayback Machine As Attorney General, he blocked efforts to reduce the prison population and fought against rehabilitative programs.

Many Alabama voters opposed the democratic party hierarchy action and therefore voted in protest against Baxley and for H. Guy Hunt, the Republican nominee.

The media had paid little attention to the Republican gubernatorial primaries, fully expecting that the GOP nominee would be the next loser in the general election.

Subsequently, Republican Governor Bob Riley appointed Graddick to fill the post left vacant when Judge William McDermott of the 13th Judicial Circuit Court died in office in May 2004.

Both Graddick and Malone had lobbied Governor Robert J. Bentley for his appointment to replace then Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, who stepped down before her term expired.

[4] Roy Moore held the chief justiceship from 2001 to 2003, when he was removed from office over the Ten Commandments dispute which received national attention.