David Vann

     The former Birmingham Mayor will be posthumously inducted into the Alabama Lawyer's Hall of Fame Friday. 

  Vann was mayor of Birmingham when I arrived there in 1976, and I found him refreshingly honest, perhaps to a fault. He literally had an open door policy...having the door removed from the entrance to his office.
     He was defeated in his bid for reelection by Richard Arrington in the aftermath of a racial shooting involving a young woman named Bonita Carter, killed by police office George Sands at the scene of a convenience store robbery. Funny how I remember the names of everyone except the gunman who actually robbed the store.
    Van died in 2000.
    Let's hope his investiture won't be as controversial as that of Hugo Black in 2005. Candidate for Chief Justice Drayton Neighbors refused to attend it because he so disliked Black's opinions as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. That decision ended up sinking his candidacy.