Уильям Джозеф Баксли: Алабама саяхатшысының өмірі мен қызметі

American politician (born 1941)

William Joseph Baxley II (born June 27, 1941), is an American Democratic politician and attorney from Dothan, Alabama. In 1964, Baxley graduated from the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa. Having previously served as district attorney in Houston County, he was elected to the first of two consecutive terms as Attorney General of Alabama in 1970, and 1974 respectively, holding the post from 1971 to 1979. At the age of twenty eight, he won the Democratic nomination for attorney general in 1970, in an upset over incumbent McDonald Gallion. Baxley, incorrectly, was perceived as the candidate closer politically to George Wallace, an impression he did not dispute throughout the election contest. At the time of his swearing in, he was the youngest person in U. S. history to hold a state attorney generalship. At the end of his attorney generalship, he lost the 1978 Democratic primary for governor in an upset contest. Although widely expected to seek the post again in 1982, after former governor George C. Wallace entered the contest, Baxley said he would not run against him and sought the office of lieutenant governor, to which he was elected. From 1983 to 1987, he served a single term as the 24th lieutenant governor of Alabama. He ran unsuccessfully in the primary for governor in 1986. During his time as state attorney general, Baxley aggressively prosecuted industrial polluters, strip miners, and corrupt elected officials. He appointed the state's first African American assistant attorney general, Myron Thompson, who later became a U. S. District Judge. Baxley reopened the cold case of the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. In a letter, the Ku Klux Klan threatened him, comparing him to John F. Kennedy, and called him an "honorary nigger." Baxley responded, on official state letterhead: "My response to your letter of February 19, 1976, is—kiss my ass."

As Alabama Attorney General, Baxley became known in 1977 for his successful prosecution of Robert Chambliss, a member of a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), in the cold case of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham on Sunday, September 15, 1963. The dynamite blast, which occurred during the time of nonviolent demonstrations in the Birmingham campaign for integration and voting rightsled by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Fred Shuttlesworth and othersresulted in the deaths of four young girls and injuries of 14 to 22 others. In 1968, the FBI formally closed their investigation into the bombing without filing charges against any of their named suspects. The files were sealed by order of J. Edgar Hoover. When Baxley reopened the dormant investigation shortly after being elected in 1971, he told one interviewer that "There are some people in Jefferson County who ought to be pretty nervous right now", and later told a Birmingham radio station that the list of suspects had been narrowed down, stating "We know who did it." Baxley confirmed that he had talked to Gary Thomas Rowe, Baxley was a strong supporter of his ex wife's campaign. In 1990, Baxley married Marie (Prat) Baxley, a reporter who had covered his campaign. In 1979, Baxley founded the firm Baxley, Dillard Trial Counsel (by 2006 was Baxley, Dillard, Dauphin, McKnight & Barclift), in Birmingham. He primarily represented large business corporations, yet also continued to represent individuals of modest means. Those efforts earned him the distinction of being selected as a fellow in the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.