MONTGOMERY&8212;-You have to believe that the legal eagles of the Alabama Democratic Party are already poring over the law books and party rules to see what their recourse would be if the trial of Don Siegelman has not come to a conclusion by June 7…the date of the Democratic Party Primary.

That they may face this unprecedented question became more pressing last week when U. S. District Judge Mark Fuller…who will hear the case in Montgomery…told the newly selected members of the jury that the trial may last six weeks.

If Judge Fuller is correct this would mean the case would not end until after the primary.

The worst case scenario would be that Siegelman is convicted after the primary.

What if he had already won the nomination? Would the committee hand pick the nominee or call a special primary? They might be reluctant to do any hand-picking after the Baxley-Graddick fiasco of 1986.

Obviously the script the state Democrats would much prefer is that a decision will be reached before election day, and Chip Hill, a spokesman for Siegelman, said he was confident that would happen. He predicted the trial would last no more than four weeks.

This optimistic view was not shared by former Atty. Gen. Bill Baxley, who is representing former Transportation Director Mack Roberts in the trial.

With the number of witnesses expected to be called, Baxley fears the trial could extend beyond election day.

It probably wouldn&8217;t upset Roy Moore at all if the Mobile Press-Register would do no more polls on his race against Gov. Bob Riley for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.

In the last few months the University of South Alabama Poll has conducted three surveys on this race, and each one has been progressively worse news for Moore.

Last October a poll showed Riley leading by a 44 percent to 25 percent margin; in February it was 56 percent to 28 percent for Riley, and last week the numbers were even more brutal…64 percent to 20 percent.

USA Pollster Keith Nicholls summed it up thusly:

&8220;It appears Moore&8217;s campaign has tanked…the fat lady may not have sung for him but she is warming up.&8221;

Almost on the same day that the Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee

was calling on candidates running for judgeships to take the &8220;high road&8221; in their campaigns, two members of the Alabama Supreme Court took turns lobbying verbal hand grenades at each.

Associate Justice Tom Woodall of the Supreme Court in an interview with the Decatur Daily not only called his fellow justice Tom Parker &8220;cowardly and deceitful&8221; but also suggested he was not doing the work expected of him on the court.

Woodall was upset with an op-ed piece written by Parker some weeks ago in which he criticized his fellow members of the high court for a decision they wrote regarding the death sentence for defendants who were under 18 when the committed the crime.

Woodall admitted that after reading the Parker column he had called him up an &8220;cussed him out.&8221;

Both men are on the ballot this June but are not running against each other. Woodall is running for reelection, Parker is running for chief justce.

If you enjoy hearing wonderful stories

from the distant past in Alabama politics, you should have been at a luncheon in Montgomery last week which was a belated birthday party for Jimmy Faulkner of Bay Minette.

Faulkner, a legendary community newspaperman and later a major player in Alabama politics, turned 90 a few weeks ago. State Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne, sponsored the event.

Mitchell is affiliated with Faulkner University, a booming institution of higher learning in Montgomery.

The university…once known as Alabama Christian College…the university was re-named for Faulkner because of his generous support.

Most of the fun at the luncheon came from the tale-swapping between Faukner and former Gov. John Patterson.

It was Patterson who defeated Faulkner in the 1958 governor&8217;s race but their political rivalry turned into a long and warm friendship