Bob Riley and the ExxonMobil Screw Job

Did Alabama Governor Bob Riley actually approve of the Alabama Supreme Court's decision to overturn a jury verdict that would have awarded the state $3.6 billion in a case against oil giant ExxonMobil?

Well, it's looking more and more like our goober of a governor actually thinks it's a good thing that his state got screwed out of billions of dollars.

First, Riley announced that he would not even seek to have the Supreme Court rehear its ruling--which, by the way, any first-year law student could see was unlawfully made. Now, we have Riley touting the fact that the American Tort Reform Association has removed Alabama from its list of "Judicial Hellholes."

"Alabama today is recognized more than we ever have been before for judicial reform and tort reform we've had over the past few years," Riley said. "Impressions of the rest of the country have changed for the better."

Changed for the better? By having our corporate courts rob us of a huge verdict that was earned because a jury found the ExxonMobil had committed fraud in underpaying on natural-gas royalties?

What does the rest of the country really think? That Alabamians are a bunch of dupes for electing goobers like Riley for governor and common corporate crooks for seats on its appellate courts.

This lends more evidence to what many of us have suspected for some time: that Riley did not want the ExxonMobil ruling to be upheld. After all, the same bunch of corporate types who put eight Republicans on the nine-person Supreme Court also put Riley into office.

This concept of "judicial hellholes" is another example of conservatives' gift for playing tricks with the language. "We're pro life," they say. Oh really, then how come you supported raising speed limits on interstates, which has been proven to cost lives? "We're for fiscal responsibility," they say. Oh really, then how come the national debt explodes every time you are in charge?

The truth is this: Alabama has never been a bigger judicial hellhole than it is right now. And the focal point of that hellhole is in the Republican enclave of Shelby County--and probably in the Republican enclave of Baldwin County, where evidence suggests Riley supporters stole the 2002 election from Don Siegelman.

And thanks to the ExxonMobil ruling, we know that the judicial hellhole includes our highest court. But that's not news to us here at Legal Schnauzer. We already knew Alabama appellate courts cheated people and violated their own rules. In the weeks ahead, we will be showing you exactly how they do it.