Replies

It is time we all called our member of congress asking that they impeach some of these out of control activist judges.

Does it worry you that Hillary Clinton agrees with your worries about activist judges, albeit the conservative, reactionary ones?

What do you want to accomplish with these bright, shiny new judges you seek who will interpret the constitution your way? When you can impose Judeo-Christian law, what will you do first, and just how will it help our country? I'm most interested in your serious answer to that last question.

You are not paying attention, I did not mention anything about Judeo-Christian Values nor did I mention installing "shiny new judges." Impeachment is the only method for holding appointed judges accountable.

What is your solution to judges legislating from the bench?

The other Ten Commandments judge

Devoted boyfriend that he was, Thomas Hinds frequently accompanied his girlfriend on her baby-sitting jobs, including those at the home of a young federal judge, Myron Thompson.

That was 18 years ago, but the conductor and music director of the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra still prizes those baby-sitting dates for the friendship he developed with "one of the really fine people I know."

"A conversation with Myron Thompson at times feels like an athletic event," said Hinds. "He is curious; he wants to know the details. 'What do you mean? How do you do that?' He wants to know how things work.

"Myron is a very analytical person, and I'm very intuitive. We approach things in a different manner, and I think I frustrate him very much," Hinds said, laughing. "Myron takes things logically, and I will go from point A to point L."

Though he hasn't spoken at length with Thompson about his central role in the Ten Commandments fight -- it was Thompson who ruled that Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's public placement of a Ten Commandments monument was unconstitutional and ordered it removed from the state Judicial Building -- Hinds doubts his friend is troubled by the harsh criticism from Moore and some supporters of the chief justice.

"Myron has great respect for people who disagree with him," Hinds said. "He is not rattled by people disliking his decisions. He says this sort of thing comes with the territory, that if you do what's right, sometimes it will be controversial."

Some have done more than just disagree. When Moore's eight associate justices on Aug. 21 overruled their chief justice's decision to defy Thompson's order, Moore denounced Thompson as having "put himself above the law (and) above God as well."

Hinds, like others interviewed for this story, described Thompson as a private man, rarely seen at Montgomery social events.

"Not only is that appropriate to his profession, I think that's his temperament," Hinds said.

An attempt to speak to Thompson for this story was unsuccessful. A clerk in his office stated that the judge wasn't giving any interviews.

In 1980, then-President Jimmy Carter nominated the Yale graduate and Tuskegee native to the federal bench. That year, Thompson became the second black person to serve as a federal judge in Alabama.

In the more than two decades since, he has presided over more than his share of controversial cases.

Though ideological labels are almost always overly broad, to the extent that some judges are branded conservative and others liberal Thompson belongs in the latter category, according to those familiar with his time on the bench.

In redistricting cases, for example, he consistently has issued rulings sought by black litigants seeking to increase representation by blacks on school boards, city councils and, as with a case in Baldwin County, on county commissions.

And in some important discrimination cases -- most notably, the long-running lawsuit by black employees against the Alabama Department of Transportation -- Thompson has ruled for minority plaintiffs.

In 1996, Thompson ruled in favor of a gay rights organization at the University of South Alabama that had been denied state funding that other student groups received.

Eight years earlier, Thompson participated in a celebration in Atlanta, marking the third anniversary of the national holiday in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"He taught us physical characteristics, racial or sexual, simply do not determine a person's worth or value," Thompson told a reporter covering the event.

"Many of our laws dealing with the handicapped, sexual discrimination and so forth are all legacies of King," Thompson said.

"I think that in some quarters, Judge Thompson has a relatively liberal reputation," said Richard Cohen, chief counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center and one of the lawyers opposing Moore in the Ten Commandments case.

"I think that other people would see him differently. For example, is it liberal to rule against the state when it was tying prisoners to a hitching post, which is a torture device?"

Thompson has found himself in the spotlight in part by virtue of his judicial district, which includes the state capital.

He's presided over a multitude of cases with statewide impact, issuing rulings on prison overcrowding and the state's treatment of the mentally ill. Thompson also was one of three judges who made the historic ruling that overturned Charlie Graddick's apparent victory in the 1986 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Bill Baxley was declared the winner, and out of that mess rose Republican Guy Hunt, who defeated Baxley in the general election.

"He has had more opportunities to intervene in state matters precisely because he's been asked to do it more than the average judge," Cohen said.

Cohen said Thompson has a pretty good record as far as appeals, despite the conservative reputation of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The appeals court, for example, issued a powerfully worded order affirming Thompson's ruling in the Ten Commandments case. The same court -- in fact, the same appellate judge -- also criticized Thompson's handling of the Transportation Department discrimination case.

Some attorneys and parties with cases before him have cited a tendency for Thompson to take considerable time, such as a year or more, before issuing rulings.

In March, for example, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley blasted Thompson for delays that Riley said have cost the state substantial sums in legal fees and other costs during the now 18-year-old Transportation Department case.

"I have been advised that, for whatever reason, motions often pend before the Federal Court for years awaiting a ruling," Riley wrote in a letter to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in complaining about Thompson's oversight of the case.

But the 56-year-old jurist receives plaudits for his intelligence, his polite, professional courtroom demeanor and for the effort he makes to hear both sides out.

Montgomery lawyer David Boyd, who primarily represents corporate clients, said he's lost more than his share of cases before Thompson. Always, though, he's felt like his client received a fair hearing.

"I practiced against him when we were both lawyers, before he was a judge, and I've been in his courtroom many, many times, and I've had a lot of contact with him on court-related matters," Boyd said. "I hold him in very high regard.

"He's an active judge in the sense that he really wants to understand what's before him, and if he thinks lawyers are not doing a good job of getting the facts or the information that he needs or that a jury needs, he can be pretty active."

Boyd, too, commented on Thompson's private nature.

"But he is also a very warm individual," said the Montgomery lawyer.

Thompson and his wife, Ann, have three children, two of whom are adopted, said Hinds. The conductor has known the judge's oldest son almost since birth, 18 years ago, and was also close to the boy's twin sister, Lilly.

The Thompsons' daughter died at age 10 of sickle cell anemia, Hinds said.

"That's something that was very personal. She was just a lovely child," he said.

Hinds rarely sees his friend at the symphony, since Thompson prefers jazz to symphonic music, he said. He also likes to read.

"He's always reading something," said Hinds. "It's his personality -- he's interested in things all over the place."

"I enjoy being around an intellect greater than mine -- it's fun, it's an adventure. That's not that I'm willing to concede that to him; I'm a conductor, and we have egos," Hinds said, laughing.

As the movement of the Ten Commandments and the protests of that action developed into a national spectacle, Hinds said he couldn't help but wonder what was going on in the private, serious head of his friend.

"I said, 'Gee Myron, people are getting excited.' But he just went to the law, found out what the law said, and made a decision," Hinds said.