Sue Bell Cobb

Sue Ann Bell Cobb (born March 1, 1956 in Louisville, Kentucky) was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court from 2007 to 2011 and is a candidate for Governor of Alabama in the 2018 Democratic primary.

Cobb, the daughter of Otis and Thera Robinson Bell, grew up in Evergreen, Conecuh County. She was the valedictorian of her 1974 class at Sparta Academy. She enrolled at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, but transferred to the University of Alabama where she earned her bachelor's degree in biology, intending to continue to medical school. Instead, she chose to pursue law, and completed a juris doctorate at the University of Alabama School of Law in 1981. She was immediately appointed by Governor Fob James to fill a vacancy on the Conecuh County District Court, becoming the youngest trial judge in the state's history. She was subsequently elected as the incumbent for that seat in 1982, and re-elected in 1988.

In 1989 a mentally ill man who carried a grudge from an appearance in her court through a firebomb into her house. She married BellSouth executive Bill Cobb in 1990.

In 1994 Cobb was elected as the first woman to sit on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. There she pursued reforms in child abuse prosecutions, as well as in the state's treatment of juvenile offenders. She served as president of the Alabama Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and founded Alabama Children First, a non-profit organization and that successfully lobbied for establishment of the state's Children First Trust Fund which supports numerous preventative programs for youth.

Cobb was elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in a close race over incumbent Republican Drayton Nabers in the 2006 general election. As chief justice, she implemented the electronic filing initiative the Nabers had begun and participated in lobbying for the Alabama Juvenile Justice Act of 2008. She also helped promote the establishment of special drug courts in each county.

On the bench, Cobb notably dissented in an 8-1 decision to reverse a $3.6 billion penalty that a jury had awarded the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources from ExxonMobil for withholding information in its oil and gas leases in Mobile Bay. Cobb stepped down in 2011 to care for her mother, who died in February 2013.

External links

• Sue Bell Cobb campaign website
• Sue Bell Cobb at Ballotpedia.org