By Associated Press
Montgomery, AL – In an election year, when Supreme Court incumbents like to talk about the court's efficiency in deciding cases, people are beginning to ask: Why so long?
Retirement Systems of Alabama chief executive David Bronner, a former assistant dean of the University of Alabama law school, says courts can do anything they want, and they like to duck issues when it's coming to election time.
At issue is the state Conservation Department's lawsuit accusing Exxon Mobil of cheating the state out of royalties from natural gas wells the oil company drilled in state-owned waters along the Alabama coast.
Exxon Mobil is appealing a three-point-six billion dollar judgment against it.
Former Republican Congressman Jim Martin of Gadsden, who got the case started when he was conservation commissioner in Gov. Fob James' administration, is among those asking questions.
Martin says when some of the incumbent Supreme Court justices campaigned in the Gadsden area, he tried to ask them why the court hadn't ruled, but they said they couldn't comment.
Martin calls the delay ``inexcusable.''
Alabama's rules of conduct for judges, which were approved by the Alabama Supreme Court, keep justices from talking publicly about pending cases.