After a morning in Senate Committee meetings, the girls took a brief tour of the Capital with the Page program and had lunch in the Senate cafeteria. We picked them up around noon and took a quick detour through the capital to visit the Rotunda and the Whispering Wall on our way to the Heflin Torbert Judicial building.
Liles Burke, Camille's godfather and Judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals, met us in the lobby and, along with a docent, gave us a tour of the Judicial Building. The girls got to see the Rare books section of the Law Library which houses some books over 300 years old and the Criminal Appeals courtroom
before heading upstairs. The Supreme Court of Alabama encompasses the third floor of the Judicial building with all the Supreme Court Justices offices and their boardroom and their courtroom fills the Rotunda. We learned a lot about the appellate process including the fact that our Appeals court is overwhelmed with cases. Liles says that the Court of Criminal Appeals rules on about 2200 cases a year and the Supreme Court about 1800 cases a year. A large portion of these cases come from Alabama not having restrictions on how many appeals a prisoner can file. A bonus while we were in the office section of the building- we just ran into Chief Justice Chuck Malone. Another nugget of information we got from our tour was that Governor Bob Riley's portrait was being unveiled at the State Archives this afternoon. So after leaving Liles, we took a quick walk in the rain up to the Archives. Amy sweet-talked the security guard into letting us in to see the painting since it wasn't on display yet and we saw Governor Riley being interviewed and his entire family having their picture taken with the picture.
And after a long day of "legislating" we headed for some 12-year-old girl entertainment: gelato and shopping in Old Cloverdale. Then back to the hotel and a quick walk to the "Alley" for dinner at Central, Montgomery's new hot spot.
Great food, great girls, great moms, great day.
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