Gil Self Removed

Gil Self, a Lauderdale County, Alabama Circuit Judge, was convicted by a jury in November 2025 on 17 of 18 felony charges following a three-week ethics trial, and sentenced on December 17, 2025, to 12 years in prison. The charges included 14 counts of intentionally using his judicial office for personal financial gain, one count of unintentional misuse of office, and two counts of perjury for lying to the state's Examiners of Public Accounts and to the Lauderdale County Grand Jury. Prosecutors showed Self misspent more than $140,000 in county funds he oversaw as presiding Circuit Judge on personal expenses, including alcohol, firearms, furniture, and travel, and separately gave his son a job in the court's law library. Self had already been suspended from the bench before trial; the trial itself was held in the same Lauderdale County courtroom where he had once presided.