Minor fallout

One of the district attorneys currently in a public spat with the attorney general is one that Troy King himself appointed as a special prosecutor less than a year ago when he recused himself from the investigation of the state’s two- year college system.

St. Clair County District Attorney Richard Minor stood with his colleagues in Montgomery last month when they asked King to apologize for comments about Shelby County District Attorney Rob by Owens . King, in taking a capital murder case from Owens, sent out a news release to media statewide and said the district attorney was “shirking” his duties and taking the side of the criminal.

Minor’s name was then inserted into news releases by King’s office that were sent to media in his jurisdiction. Releases were customized with the names of 15 district attorneys in their respective jurisdictions. The individualized releases said some of the district attorneys’ actions were “frighteningly un-American” and said that they, along with Owens, turned their back on victims.

Minor told The Daily Home of Talladega that King’s statements were inappropriate, were a personal attack on Owens and that district attorneys had prosecuted cases resulting in the death penalty while King had not.

King, Minor and Owens are all Republicans.

The attorney general recused himself from the two-year investigation after a report in The Birmingham News revealed he asked a major subject of the investigation, former two-year Chancellor Roy Johnson , to find a job for the mother of a friend, who is also a deputy attorney general.

King stepped aside only after the situation became public and about a year after his request to Johnson. “Looking back now, it probably was not the best decision,” King told the News. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it.”