Thomas Virgil Pittman

American judge

Thomas Virgil Pittman (March 28, 1916 – January 6, 2012) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama .

Early life and education

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Born in Enterprise , Alabama to the former Annie Lee Logan (1889–1982), the second wife of W.O. Pittman (1879–1965), Pittman had four older step-siblings and an older brother, Oscar L. Pittman. He picked cotton alongside both whites and blacks during the Great Depression. His ancestors had been among the white pioneers who settled Coffee County . While at the University of Alabama , Pittman joined the United States Army Reserve , serving from 1938 to 1942. He served in the Navy reserves from 1944 to 1946. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1939 and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1940.

Early career

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Pittman entered federal service as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1940 to 1944. He served in the United States Naval Reserve and was called to duty as a lieutenant near the end of World War II, serving from 1944 to 1946. Upon discharge, he entered private practice in Gadsden , Alabama from 1946 to 1951, practicing as the law firm of Pittman & Miller. Pittman became a Circuit Judge of the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Alabama from 1951 to 1953, and the circuit's Presiding Judge from 1953 to 1966. He also taught as a lecturer at the University of Alabama Center at Gadsden from 1948 to 1966.

Federal judicial service

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President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Judge Pittman on June 13, 1966, to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama , a new joint seat authorized by 80 Stat. 75. The United States Senate confirmed the nomination on June 29, 1966, and Pittman received his commission on June 29, 1966. For several years he traveled in a circuit of federal courthouses in Montgomery , Mobile , Selma , Dothan and Opelika . His service on the Middle District terminated on June 2, 1970, when he was reassigned to only the Southern District, as its Chief Judge Daniel Holcombe Thomas neared retirement. Pittman served as Chief Judge of the Southern District from 1971 to 1981. He became the first federal judge in Mobile to hire black and female law clerks. Judge Pittman assumed senior status on July 15, 1981, but continued with a reduced docket for decades. As of 2020, Pittman is the last judge appointed by a Democratic president to the Southern District of Alabama.

During the Civil Rights Era , Judge Pittman was assigned two complex cases brought by the NAACP involving at-large offices in Mobile County, Alabama . Former Chief Judge Thomas had handled the Birdie Mae Davis school desegregation case for decades, which ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court twice, but would be overshadowed by school desegregation cases from Virginia and North Carolina. After Judge Thomas' assumed senior status in 1971, Judge William Brevard Hand , would handle that case, which formally ended on March 27, 1997. Judge Pittman was assigned the election case with Wiley Bolden as lead plaintiff and which concerned at large election of Mobile County's three commissioners (each elected at-large and who governed the county, each being named Mobile's mayor during his rotating designation as president); Judge Hand had recused himself because his former firm represented the city. A similar case, also discussed below, involved the at-large election of the school board, and the lead plaintiff was Lila Brown. At the heart of both cases was the at-large election system begun following the 1911 revision of Alabama's constitution; no African Americans had thereafter won any county-wide office.

Other important or controversial cases which Judge Pittman handled involved the Choctaw County Schools (1968), Mobile police officers (1971), Mobile Sheriff Thomas Purvis (1977), Mobile police officers (1978), Choctaw County jail food (1980) and Mobile County jail overcrowding (1981).

The Bolden case

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The Bolden case went to trial on July 12, 1976; and on October 21, 1976, Judge Pittman issued a decision for the plaintiffs which led to considerable controversy. The "Constitutional Crisis Committee" asked for Pittman's impeachment, and Mobile commissioner and then-mayor Lambert C. Mims offered to sign the impeachment petition, but the city attorney advised against it. While 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals evaluated his decision, Judge Pittman postponed the 1977 city election, allowing the three committeemen elected in 1973 to remain in office, and the appellate court later affirmed Judge Pittman's decision.

Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and in Mobile v. Bolden reversed the appellate judgment and vacated Judge Pittman's decision. To comply, Judge Pittman held a second hearing beginning May 1981, although this time elections were not postponed. Meanwhile a "smoking gun" letter was discovered and admitted into evidence—written by Mobile lawyer and Congressman Frederick G. Bromberg to the Alabama legislature in 1909, it clearly indicated the purpose of the at-large system was to prevent blacks from holding office. Both Commissioners Mims and Greenough promised not to appeal the second Bolden decision if the city lost, although Commissioner Robert Doyle avoided the issue. Ultimately, Doyle won re-election immediately, and both Mims and Greenough won re-el

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