Written brief in Hubbard appeal due in April

The first written brief in the appeal trial of former House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, will be due to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals on April 26, marking the first substantial move in Hubbard's appeal process since it began last October.

The letter was sent on March 30 after Lee County Circuit Clerk Mary Roberson submitted the Court Record on Appeal, a 1,800-page document that includes all motions, orders and transcripts from Hubbard's two years of court proceedings. The notice was filed on the state's electronic court filing system on Monday.

The lead defense attorney for Hubbard, Bill Baxley, told The Plainsman Tuesday that he plans to have the written brief filed in Hubbard's case by the deadline on April 26.

The filing of the Clerk's Record on Appeal had been delayed since Hubbard first launched his appeal in October 2016. Roberson has said the record is "complex" and "voluminous," requiring time extensions for her office to prepare it.

The Court of Criminal Appeals had previously granted several time extensions since November 2016. Each time, the appeal was delayed by 28 days.

"While this number of filings alone are rare in a criminal case and would warrant an extension of time, many of these filings are Under Seal, which will make preparation of the Clerk's Record even more complex," she wrote. "The Clerk's Record will be voluminous in its transcript and exhibits."

Hubbard was removed from office in June 2016 after being found guilty of 12 felony ethics violations — violations of the same ethics law he himself helped push through the Legislature in December 2010 during his first special legislative session as speaker.

In July, Lee County Circuit Judge Jacob Walker sentenced Hubbard to four years total in prison.

In total, Walker — who sat on the bench over Hubbard's case since his indictment in 2014 — set his base sentence at 12 years. Four years of that sentence would be served in a state penitentiary, and the remaining eight years will be supervised probation.

The total minimum sentence, if Walker had chosen it, could have been 24 years in prison. Instead, Walker chose to split each charge and then allow Hubbard to serve many of them concurrently with one another.

In the appeal, Hubbard's attorneys suggested they will take the Lee County verdict to task on jury misconduct and court error in ruling on pre-trial, trial and post-trial motions. Baxley has also said the jury was biased against the former speaker.

"We have probably a dozen issues with the verdicts," Baxley said Tuesday. "We think any of the dozen issues are sufficient for us to prevail in appeal. I think we have got evidence that certainly raises the question of whether some of the jurors were biased."

Baxley submitted a post-trial motion over the summer asking for the verdict to be overturned and for an investigation to be launched by the Lee County Sheriff's Office into possible juror misconduct. Walker denied the motion because he said there was no evidence of juror misconduct.

Upon conviction in June, Hubbard was immediately removed from both his office as Alabama House speaker and his seat as Auburn's House representative. A special election was called by Gov. Robert Bentley in late June to replace Hubbard's seat.

Rep. Joe Lovvorn, R-Auburn, who is now serving in Montgomery, won the seat in the September special election.

The former speaker was found guilty of voting on legislation despite conflicts of interest, accepting illegal investments from lobbyists and principles, using his office for personal gain and lobbying the executive branch, among other offenses.

Hubbard, who Baxley said still "absolutely" maintains his innocence, will remain free on bond until a verdict is rendered in the appeal.

"We don't even think he should have been indicted," Baxley said. "What occurred was not criminal conduct in our opinion. What he did was not a violation of criminal statute. That's the bottom line."