Meet the lawyer who won Alabama's Senate election
Doug Jones/Wikipedia
The Democrat who beat former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in the state's Senate race is a lawyer best known for winning the convictions of two Klansmen for the 1963 church bombing that killed four girls.
Doug Jones, a litigator at Jones & Hawley, is a former U.S. attorney who touts his law-and-order background and is a supporter of gun rights, the Chicago Tribune reports. He downplays his liberal stands on gay rights and abortion, focusing instead on jobs, health care and education. Also reporting on Jones’ background are the New York Times and the Associated Press.
As of Thursday evening, Moore refuses to concede the election. He said Wednesday to “wait on God and let this process play out,” Vox reports.
The Times describes Jones as “a rare combination: part bourbon-sipping Southerner and part New York Yankees-loving Democrat.” He “carries not a whiff of scandal,” according to the Tribune.
From the Marshall Project: What the Doug Jones election means for criminal justice reform
Jones grew up in the Birmingham suburb and steel mill town of Fairfield. Jones’ father worked at U.S. Steel, and Jones also worked in a mill when not in school.
When blacks began attending Jones’ high school, he helped with the integration process and was named the Kiwanis Club Youth of the Year, according to the Times. Darnell Gardner, one of the black youths at the school, tells the Times that Jones befriended him and was available to help with problems.
Jones graduated from the University of Alabama in 1976 and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in 1979. During law school, he would skip class to watch the trial of Klansman Robert Chambliss for helping plan the September 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Chambliss was the first man convicted in the bombing
After law school, Jones worked as staff counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for former Alabama Justice Howell Heflin, the state’s last Democratic senator.
Jones was appointed U.S. Attorney in 1997 by President Bill Clinton, and left the office in 2001 after the election of President George W. Bush. Just before then, Jones acted as a specially appointed state prosecutor in the successful prosecution of Thomas Blanton Jr. in the 1963 bombing.
Jones also coordinated the task force that led to the indictment of Eric Rudolph, who is serving a life sentence for for the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham abortion clinic that killed an off-duty police officer.
Jones tried a run for Heflin’s seat after leaving as U.S. attorney, but dropped out of the race before the primary election and returned to private practice. In 2002, he was named a special prosecutor to try another man accused in the church bombing, Bobby Frank Cherry, and won a conviction.
Jones’ law practice included class actions, securities litigation, health care litigation, white-collar criminal defense, whistleblower litigation, environmental litigation and internal and corporate compliance matters, according to his law firm biography.
Last updated Dec. 14 to correct typo, link to other coverage and note that Moore still had not conceded.
