By BRAD GASKINS / Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – Gov. Robert Bentley announced today the appointment of William H. Bostick III to fill the Shelby County Circuit Court’s vacant judgeship.

Bill Bostick, a prosecutor for 18 years, succeeds Judge Michael Joiner, who was appointed in February to the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals.

Bostick’s appointment is effective immediately and lasts through the 2012 general election. He will be sworn in early next week by Presiding Circuit Judge Hewitt “Sonny” Conwill and formally invested at a later date.

“I’m leaving the best job in the world,” said Bostick, a Shelby County assistant district attorney for 15 years and chief assistant district attorney for the last nine years.

Bostick, 44, was one 16 attorneys nominated for the judgeship to the Shelby County Judicial Commission. The commission whittled the list down to three – Bostick, Corey Moore and Richard Shuleva – and forwarded the list to Bentley.

“He brings a wealth of experience and is more than qualified to serve the people of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit,” Bentley said through a press release.

Bostick said Bentley informed him of the decision April 19, just a couple hours after Bostick learned that his son, Bradley, was offered a football scholarship to the Air Force Academy.

Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens, who had been grooming Bostick to succeed him for years, said Bostick was an “ideal candidate” for a judge for three reasons: his ability to evaluate people and personalities, his understanding of the law and his sense of fairness.

Assistant District Attorney Jill Lee has been promoted to chief assistant district attorney, Owens said. Lee will continue to manage the clerical staff in addition to her new duties managing the office’s caseload.

Bostick has overseen the prosecution of thousands of felony cases, attended more than 100 sessions of the Shelby County Grand Jury and personally tried more than 100 jury and bench trials.

Bostick secured convictions for some of Shelby County’s most notorious murderers, including Jerry Lee Bowen, Mark Anthony Duke, Lasamuel Gamble, Alan Eugene Miller and Ryan Gerald Russell.

He was named in 2010 as the Assistant District Attorney of the Year by the Alabama District Attorneys’ Investigators Association and delivered the keynote address in 2011 at the Alabama District Attorney’s Association Winter Conference.

Bostick has served since 1996 as an adjunct professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law, from which he graduated in 1992.

Bostick said he has always prided himself in treating all with equal fairness, a trait he said he would continue to do as a judge.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a millionaire or a pauper,” he said.