Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall speaks at the Alabama County Commission Association convention at the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Alabama, on Aug. 20, 2025. (Anna Barrett/Alabama Reflector)
It’s hard to listen to former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley without thinking about what we’ve lost.
Earlier this month, Baxley, who served in the office from 1971 to 1979, spoke at an Southern Poverty Law Center-sponsored event in Birmingham, where he discussed his prosecution of Robert “Dynamite Bob” Chambliss for the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.
It was nothing new for Baxley. He’s discussed the prosecution on TV shows, on National Public Radio and in a Spike Lee documentary.
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“This time with the death of four children in the house of worship, I thought that exceeded all the bad deeds,” he said at the event.
As anyone with a conscience would. But we should remember the difficult work between the murders and the conviction.
Baxley requested the FBI files on the bombing in 1971, shortly after he took office. He had to wait four years to get them. After the files arrived, it took another year for an investigator to find a reference to Chambliss’ wife’s niece in the original 1963 notes, which opened a path to conviction.
The KKK threatened Baxley, who accused him of prosecuting “Alabama patriots.” (This provoked the most famous reply in state history: “My response to your letter of February 19, 1976 is – kiss my ass.”) And when he took the case to a jury in 1977, he knew that Chambliss didn’t act alone.
“Don’t you believe this was the only man involved,” Baxley told the jury shortly before they convicted Chambliss of first-degree murder. “We’re not saying he’s the only one. But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
It was hard work. It was incomplete. The prosecution may have hurt Baxley’s gubernatorial campaign in 1978. And yet it was a step toward justice, which Alabama’s Jim Crow regime had done all in its sneering, cynical power to stop.
Baxley was a politician, not a saint. But he channeled his political ambition toward making Alabama a better place. Which you can’t say about current Attorney General Steve Marshall.
The attorney general signed a letter last week addressing the Trump administration’s military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. The White House claims they’re attacking drug traffickers. It has provided zero evidence of that. Even if it did, blowing up boats will do little to stop the flow of drugs. And even if these boats were carrying drugs, those claims must be dealt with in a court of law. Not through high seas lynchings.
So what does Alabama’s chief law enforcement officer think of Trump’s actions?
“I am extremely proud of the President for taking a strong stand and targeting cartel operations,” Marshall said in a statement. “This is exactly the kind of strategic reforms our country deserves.”
The “reform,” in this case, is a thorough abrogation of international law and the possible, even likely killing of innocent people.
But Marshall treats this lawless, bloodthirsty policy — a stain on our character that alienates countries around the world — as a positive step.
That’s consistent with Marshall’s eight years as attorney general. He often shows aversion to the execution of the law. At least as applied to white men.
He took it upon himself to free former Montgomery Police Officer Cody Smith, convicted of manslaughter in the death of Greg Gunn, even taking the case away from the Republican district attorney in Montgomery.
He attended Donald Trump’s trial on charges of fraud in order to denounce the entire process. When the state was ordered to draw two new congressional districts to give Black Alabamians a voice equal to their numbers, Marshall issued a statement comparing proper representation of Alabama citizens to the authoritarian mechanics of Jim Crow, showing either profound historical illiteracy or willful ignorance. You pick.
I don’t expect attorneys general to spend all their time righting historical injustices. Baxley did a lot besides take on the Klan. He forced U.S. Steel to abide by pollution controls, leading to a major improvement in Birmingham’s air quality. He even got a conviction in 1975 against the president of the Public Service Commission, a man whose candidacy he once touted.
You can’t envision Marshall doing any of that. His focus keeps drifting away from Alabama. Marshall would rather go to New York to defend Trump, or file a brief arguing that children in the Empire State should be needlessly exposed to measles. He’s fighting in court right now to stop several states and Boulder, Colorado from suing Exxon over climate change.
Marshall seems to view his office as a platform for conservative fever dreams and a launchpad for his hopes for higher office. President Trump is the rocket fuel. So if the president violates basic legal standards, Marshall will not only cheer; he’ll grab the pom-poms.
It’s quite a change from the 1970s. Bill Baxley pursued the rule of law even when it led to political difficulties. To Steve Marshall, there’s no greater political difficulty than the rule of law.
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Author: Brian Lyman