Greg Gambril announced that he has qualified as a Democrat to seek re-election as district attorney of the 22nd judicial circuit.

Gambril has worked in the district attorney’s office since 1992. He was elected to a six-year term in 2004 and was sworn in as DA in January of 2005.

Last summer, he was named district attorney of the year by his peers in the Alabama District Attorneys Association and District Attorney’s Investigators Association.

In 2007, he was named prosecutor of the year for the Southern Region by VOCAL, a state-wide crime victim’s advocacy group.

“Serving the victims of this community and standing up for the defenseless is the highest of callings and it has been my honor and privilege to do that over the last two decades,” Gambril said.

Gambril currently is serving his second term on the Alabama District Attorneys Association (ADAA) Executive Committee, the governing body of the state’s prosecutors. He is also on the United States Attorneys Law Enforcement Coordinating Council Executive Committee, which brings together law enforcement officers and prosecutors on both the federal and state level to share resources and coordinate on the criminal issues facing each agency. He is also past chairman of the Criminal Justice Section of the Alabama State Bar.

Gambril said he has a nearly 90 percent conviction rate in all of his trials and has never lost a murder case. In his current term as DA, he has successfully tried four capital murder cases, including the trials of Oscar Roy Doster and Bobby O’Lee Phillips, both of whom were sentenced to death.

He also said he has reduced the docket load and the inmate population of the county jail.

He said this has been done by focusing on clearing cases without the need for trial through settlement conferences and an increased attention to newly arrested cases. He said more than half of the felony charges docketed for grand jury over the past year were disposed of by plea agreement within months of the crime.

Gambril also serves on the ADAA Zerometh Committee, a nationally-recognized methamphetamine drug awareness campaign that was established by Alabama’s district attorneys.

Gambril is also on the board of directors of the 22nd Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force and serves as project director. Gambril has also been active in establishing Covington County’s Drug Court, a program currently in its infancy stage that is designed to reach its full potential of rehabilitating drug addicted non-violent offenders and teaching them life skills over an extended period of time.

“The people of Covington County have blessed me beyond all measure by allowing me to serve as their District Attorney. I love this community and look forward to fighting tooth and nail to continue to seek justice in our courts,” Gambril said. “Unlike all other attorneys, whose duty is to their client, a prosecutor’s sole duty is to truth and justice. In order to do the right thing, I often have to make decisions that are unpopular. To be district attorney, I have had the strength, courage, faith, morality, ethics, and experience to make those decisions and act upon them, regardless of public opinion. I have done that since 1992 and will continue to do so if re-elected.”

He is a member of the First United Methodist Church of Andalusia where he teaches Sunday School and has been an active committee member. He is a former chairman of the Andalusia Housing Authority’s Bright Beginnings Pre-School and Family Life Center Building Committee, has also coached youth soccer, and regularly speaks to civic, church, and youth organizations.

He and his wife, the former Julie Bratton, have two children, Joseph, 7, and Charlie, 4.