Opinion ID: 66289
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Germany’s Background

Text: Germany was elected as a county commissioner for District Two of Jefferson County, Alabama in November 1990. Jefferson County consists of five districts, each represented by an elected commissioner. Germany’s district covered much of the city of Birmingham, Alabama. His duties as commissioner included 2 serving the public and administering various departments of the county government. Each commissioner is also assigned administrative functions at the beginning of his four-year term. One of Germany’s assigned functions was commissioner of health and human services, with county-wide responsibility for indigent health-care. Germany ultimately served District Two for three consecutive four-year terms. On 28 July 2005, a grand jury in the Northern District of Alabama returned a five-count indictment against Germany. A superceding indictment was returned by the grand jury in early September 2005 and a second superceding indictment was returned on 28 September 2005. The second superceding indictment charged Germany with four counts of misapplication of government funds and one count of conspiracy to misapply government funds. Germany was tried and convicted on all counts by a jury in June of 2006. Prior to his trial, Germany filed several motions with the district court, two of which are relevant to our discussion. The first was a motion to dismiss parts of Count 5 for violation of the statute of limitations and the second was a motion to dismiss the indictment for duplicity and vagueness. The district court denied both motions. Germany was sentenced in October 2006. After ruling on all objections, the 3 district court determined Germany’s offense level to be 24, with a criminal history category I, yielding an advisory guideline range from fifty-one to sixty-three months. The district court sentenced Germany to forty-three months of imprisonment on each count to be served concurrently, a two-year term of supervised release, and $126,830 in restitution to Jefferson County. In order to better frame the issues before us, we now take a closer look at how Jefferson County commissioners disburse funds within their respective districts.