Photo courtesy of Jill Ganus
Jill Ganus
Jill Ganus
Hoover resident Jill Ganus this week put on a judge’s robe once again, following an appointment to a Jefferson County District Court judgeship on Friday.
Gov. Kay Ivey selected Ganus to fill the spot in the Bessemer Division of Jefferson County being vacated by Judge Eric Fancher Sr., who retired in September after 20 years on the bench.
Ganus, 51, previously served as a Jefferson County District Court judge in Bessemer from 2006 to 2013, handling family court and juvenile issues. She also served as an assistant district attorney in the Bessemer Division from 1993 to 2006 and again from 2013 to January 2015.
More recently, she has served as a deputy district attorney in Tuscaloosa County from January 2015 to January 2016 and again since March of this year.
Ganus, the wife of former Bessemer Division District Attorney Bill Veitch, said she is very excited to be back on the bench and back in the county courthouse in Bessemer.
“All this will be is putting me in a different position in the courtroom,” Ganus said.
Her new role will not include family or juvenile court, she said. She’ll be handling criminal cases that involve adults, including both misdemeanors and felonies, she said.
One of her jobs will be to oversee bench trials for defendants who can’t make bond and determine whether there is probable cause for cases to proceed, she said. She also will work with drug court and DUI diversion court, she said. She will not oversee jury trials because those are handled in circuit court.
In her previous time as a judge, Ganus began the first "girls-only" docket in Alabama to bring together troubled female teens with all-female facilitators. She also began the Bessemer Division’s first Teen Court for first-time offenders and started the Bessemer Fatherhood Initiative Program to help dads find jobs, pay child support and receive help from parenting classes and mentors.
Resigning from Hoover school board
In 2015, the Hoover City Council appointed Ganus to the Hoover school board. Ganus said she is resigning her seat on the school board due to her judicial appointment, but she has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to serve in that capacity.
“I’m serving with some really good people,” she said. “Every one of them just wants to make the Hoover City Schools system a better place.”
She participated in some important decisions on the school board, such as approving a school rezoning proposal that is still before the federal court, selling the former Berry High School to the Vestavia Hills Board of Education and buying Riverchase Middle School from the Pelham Board of Education.
Ganus said she likes the idea of turning Riverchase Middle School into a skilled trades center to help provide different opportunities for students who don’t plan to go to college and help fill a gap in the skilled labor force.
She also has enjoyed having the opportunity to learn about some of the things happening in schools her son did not attend, she said. He came up through Deer Valley Elementary, Brock’s Gap Intermediate School and Bumpus Middle School and now is a sophomore at Hoover High.
The Hoover City Council must find a replacement to serve the remaining three years of Ganus’ term on the school board.
After finding out about her judicial appointment on Friday afternoon, Ganus was sworn into office by former Jefferson County Judge Teresa Petelos on Saturday.
She reported for duty Monday morning and started hearing cases at 9 a.m. “I think it went well,” she said.
She already knows the bailiff and judicial assistant that were serving with Fancher from her previous experience in the courthouse and other community connections, she said. “I think we’re going to have fun.”
In addition to her service on the Hoover school board, Ganus serves on the executive committee for the Jefferson County Republican Party and on the board of directors for Crime Stoppers of Metro Alabama.
She also previously has served on the board of directors of the Hoover YMCA, Child Care Resources and Bessemer Children’s Advocacy Center and on domestic violence task forces in Bessemer and Tuscaloosa.
There were more thanfive years left on Fancher’s term in office, but Ganus said she will have to run for election in 2018 due a state law that requires appointed judges to run for election in the first election cycle following their appointment.
