Northern District of Alabama Press Release


	UNITED STATES ATTORNEY JOYCE WHITE VANCE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA
	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE			CONTACT: PEGGY SANFORD
	SEPTEMBER 11, 2009			PHONE: (205) 244-2020
	www.usdoj.gov/usao/aln			FAX: (205) 244-2171

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit today upheld the 2006 convictions of former Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Woodward and his lawyer, Albert Jordan, on charges they conspired to illegally use criminal databases to contest the 1998 sheriff’s election, United States Attorney Joyce White Vance announced.

Woodward lost the election to his opponent, Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale, by 37 votes. Woodward suspected felons not eligible to vote had cast absentee ballots in Bessemer and decided to contest the election. Woodward hired Jordan, a lawyer, to handle his case.

Subsequently, a federal grand jury charged Woodward and Jordan with accessing the National Crime Information Center database to illegally obtain criminal records of people who voted in the sheriff’s race by absentee ballot in Bessemer. The NCIC houses criminal records from federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

In January 2006, a federal jury convicted the defendants of conspiring to improperly access the NCIC database and of illegally obtaining that information.

Today, the appeals court rejected Woodward and Jordan’s argument that their convictions should be overturned because the indictment failed to state an offense against them. The Eleventh Circuit also rejected defense arguments of insufficient evidence, and that the defendants should be granted a new trial because instructions to the jury were incomplete.

The appeals court ruled the trial judge adequately explained the law to the jury.

The appeals court also ruled that the indictment against Woodward and Jordan met the necessary legal standard. “It gave the defendants fair notice of the essential elements of the charged offenses, that is, notice sufficient to enable them to prepare a defense,” the ruling said.

The appeals court also ruled that “the jury’s verdicts have ample support in the evidence.” Viewing the evidence “in the light most favorable to the United States,” the appeals court said, it shows that Woodward retained Jordan as his attorney to challenge the election results. The evidence also shows that Jordan, with Woodward’s knowledge and consent, asked an employee of Woodward’s to conduct a criminal search of absentee voters; that Woodward asked the employee to provide Jordan with results of the search; that the employee explained the information had come from the NCIC database; and that Jordan took the information and used some of it to prosecute Woodward’s election contest.

Further evidence showed that on the day a newspaper story reported on Woodward’s use of the criminal databases, he held a meeting, attended by Jordan, announcing a sheriff’s department task force was launching a voter fraud investigation.

“A reasonable factfinder could infer from this that Woodward convened the task force to cover up his and Jordan’s use of the NCIC to prepare for an election contest,” the appellate ruling said.

In the government’s cross-appeal challenging the sufficiency of the district court’s sentence of six-months probation for both defendants, the Eleventh Circuit upheld the judge’s sentence.