Alabama Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is housed in the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. The Governor of Alabama may fill vacancies when they occur for the remainder of unexpired terms. The current partisan line-up for the court is all Republican. There is no specific limitation on the number of terms to which a member may be elected. However, the state constitution under Amendment 328, adopted in 1973, prohibits any member from seeking election once they have attained the age of seventy years. This amendment would have prohibited then Chief Justice Roy Moore from seeking re-election in 2018. However, on April 26, 2017, Moore announced his intent to run for the United States Senate seat formerly held by United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and resigned from the court. The current Clerk of Court is Margaret "Megan" Byrne Rhodebeck, who assumed the office by appointment on August 1, 2022. History The Supreme Court of Alabama was organized under the governorship of William Wyatt Bibb, and had its beginnings with the Alabama Constitution of 1819, which stated that until the General Assembly deemed otherwise, the functions of the Supreme Court would be handled by the judges of the Alabama circuit courts. The circuit judges were elected by a joint vote of both houses of the Alabama Legislature. These judges met in May 1820 in the capital city of Cahaba for the first term of the Supreme Court. Clement Comer Clay was appointed by the other judges as the first chief justice of the court. Following his resignation in 1823, he was succeeded by Abner Smith Lipscomb.