Morning Update: John Gargiulo replaces Judge Terry; Dispute over McCoy's status as U.S. Attorney
The big news yesterday was Governor Barbour's appointment of Gulfport resident and native John Gargiulo to fill the Circuit Judge seat vacated by the retiring Judge Jerry Terry. Here is the Sun-Herald's article on the appointment, which I speculated on in this post in May when Judge Terry announced his retirement. The article states:
Gargiulo attended college on a full ROTC scholarship before graduating from law school and joining a private practice in 1998. He has been a prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office for nine years.
The following bio was attached to the article:
Age: 42
Hometown: Gulfport
Education: Graduate of St. Stanislaus, University of Southern Mississippi and Ole Miss
Experience: Assistant district attorney for Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties since 2000; private law practice of Bryant Clark Dukes in 1998.
Background: National Guard lieutenant colonel; served in U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer for five years
Family: He and his wife, Lisa, have twin sons, Andrew and Jordan, 17, and a daughter, Katherine, 14.
It's also my understating that he was deployed in Operation Desert Storm. I am the same age as Gargiulo, but did not know him growing up (other than knowing who he was) because we lived in different neighborhoods and went to different schools. He has an excellent reputation on the Coast and will have no problem getting elected to a full term for the seat. Gargiulo is at least the second 1985 high school graduate from Gulfport to become a judge, joining U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden.
The other big story yesterday was the disagreement between Alan Lange at Ya'll Politics and Patsy Brumfield at the N.E. Daily Journal on whether Christi McCoy will still be appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. Lange says that McCoy is out, Brumfield disagrees. Tom Freeland has the latest in this post. I do not have an opinion one way or the other right now, but I do know that Brumfield has mentioned names for the Southern District post after pretty much everyone around here agreed they were out of the running. This makes me question whether Lange has information that has not yet reached Brumfield.
