Alabama ‘Hopelessly Corrupt Judge’ Arrested On Spousal Abuse Charge

Federal judge Mark Fuller has been arrested:

Police say an Alabama federal judge accused of assaulting his wife at an Atlanta hotel has been charged with battery.

Atlanta Police spokeswoman Kim Jones says 55-year-old U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller was arrested early Sunday after a reported altercation at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta.

Jones said the woman, who hasn’t been identified by name, was treated for injuries on the scene but refused to be taken to a local hospital.

It’s unclear if Fuller has an attorney, and jail records show that he’s being held without bond.

In case you aren’t familiar with this particular judge,

Fuller is a judge in the Middle District of Alabama in Montgomery and presided over the bribery trial of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy in 2006.

Now, let’s roll the clock back to August 2012, courtesy of Roger “Legal Schnauzer” Shuler:

The most nauseating moment in last Friday’s resentencing of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman came when U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller stated that he had no doubt a bribe had taken place in the case.

This is a judge who, according to an affidavit from Missouri attorney Paul Benton Weeks, once tried to defraud the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) and committed perjury in the process. This is the same judge who, according to documents in his ongoing divorce case, had an affair with a female employee, committed acts of domestic violence, drove under the influence, and showed signs of having an addiction to prescription painkillers.

It takes chutzpah for Mark Fuller to sit in judgment of anyone. But to fully grasp Fuller’s arrogance, it helps to read one full quotation from the Siegelman resentencing. Here it is, as reported in Sunday’s Birmingham News:

During his case and appeal, Siegelman maintained there had been no promise of a reward if Scrushy arranged the donations. He pushed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case, to no avail.

But Fuller said when he sentenced Siegelman that there was no doubt in his mind that Siegelman had taken a bribe.

“The facts of this case for years have been misrepresented. There is no doubt in this court’s mind that what took place was a bribe,” Fuller said.

I will take that as a cheap shot toward the non-traditional press, which has led the way in raising questions about the Siegelman prosecution. The mainstream media has been mostly asleep at the switch, but concerns about the case have come from numerous quarters. …

Since Fuller raised the issue of certainty regarding some aspects of the Siegelman case, let’s examine a few that he failed to mention–and there truly is no doubt about these…

• Fuller denied the defense information that would have shown the prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations.
• Fuller’s jury instructions did not include the “explicit agreement” requirement spelled out in the controlling case law, McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257 (1991). And they did not match the instructions given by U.S. Judge Myron Thompson in the trial and retrial of the Alabama bingo case. Thompson’s instructions did match the language in McCormick, they resulted in zero convictions, and Thompson has proposed that they be used in all cases alleging bribery in the campaign-contribution context.
• Various individuals connected to the Siegelman case have filed affidavits stating… Fuller was compromised by his animosity toward Siegelman, dating to an investigation of the office where Fuller had served as a state district attorney.

Thinking citizens should not be swayed by Fuller’s blind assertion from the bench that the Siegelman case involved a clear case of bribery. The truth? The Alabama bingo case, involved hours of wiretaps and far more compelling evidence than was present in the Siegelman case. But the judge gave proper jury instructions, based on controlling law, and the prosecutions yielded zero convictions.

Overwhelming doubt exists about the presence of bribery in the Siegelman case. But even if the most gross sort of bribery had been present, the prosecution was barred by the statute of limitations.

The truth? Mark Fuller is a hopelessly corrupt judge, who unlawfully let an untimely prosecution move forward. And a compromised jury produced a conviction that did not square with the facts or the relevant law.

D.B. Hirsch

D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.