[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/news\/jsl-alumnus-fulfills-dream-of-becoming-a-district-attorney\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/news\/jsl-alumnus-fulfills-dream-of-becoming-a-district-attorney\/","headline":"JSL alumnus fulfills dream of becoming a district attorney\u00a0","name":"JSL alumnus fulfills dream of becoming a district attorney\u00a0","description":"Daryl Bailey points to a picture of himself with the Faulkner Law graduating class of 1996. Daryl Bailey dreamed of becoming a district attorney (DA) ever since he was in the first-grade when his teacher randomly selected him to play…","datePublished":"2025-07-09","dateModified":"2025-07-09","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/author\/cmorris\/#Person","name":"Charlotte Morris","url":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/author\/cmorris\/","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/625d10a9d4b7dc9661ad2ef4777043ba?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/625d10a9d4b7dc9661ad2ef4777043ba?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Faulkner University","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/Official-Horizontal-480x128.png","url":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/Official-Horizontal-480x128.png","width":480,"height":128}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/class-of-96-2-scaled.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/class-of-96-2-scaled.jpg","height":1920,"width":2560},"url":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/news\/jsl-alumnus-fulfills-dream-of-becoming-a-district-attorney\/","about":["Alumni","Highlights","Law","News"],"wordCount":1176,"articleBody":"Daryl Bailey points to a picture of himself with the Faulkner Law graduating class of 1996.Daryl Bailey dreamed of becoming a district attorney (DA) ever since he was in the first-grade when his teacher randomly selected him to play the role of the DA in a school play. \u201cThat play and that teacher changed my life forever,\u201d Bailey said. He was tasked with prosecuting sugar for causing a cavity in a boy\u2019s tooth \u2013 and won. \u201cI thought, \u2018Wow! That was fun. I really liked that.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Throughout his educational years, his desire to become a DA never changed, but an experience in seventh grade almost changed his mind. \u201cI remember a prosecutor came to speak to our class,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cIt was right after I had watched a movie where a prosecutor puts the bad guy away and when the bad guy gets out he hunts down the prosecutor and his family and tried to kill them. As a seventh grader, I was really worried about that.\u201d  After sharing those fears with the guest speaker, he gave Bailey great advice that he has passed on to his staff over the years. \u201cHe said, \u2018Son, if you do your job honestly and treat everyone in the courtroom with respect \u2013 no matter where they came from or what they did \u2013 you would never have an issue.\u2019\u201d  After high school, Bailey attended Lipscomb University before earning an undergraduate degree in communications and political science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, his hometown. When picking a law school, Bailey said he knew he wanted to attend a Christian law school and was already familiar with Faulkner from his involvement with the Lads to Leaders program as a youth and enrolled at Thomas Goode Jones School of Law.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe law school was very small back then, but in my third year the current building was built, and I remember helping move in furniture and worked in the library,\u201d he said. \u201cOne faculty member who stood out was Shirley Howell,\u201d Bailey recalled. \u201cShe was a phenomenal teacher, but everyone was scared of her. She was intimidating, but under that exterior she was the sweetest person on earth. She was probably my biggest cheerleader throughout my career.\u201d While at Jones he served as Student Bar Association President and began his career in the Montgomery County DA\u2019s office as a volunteer. \u201cThey had never had a volunteer before, but they said I could take out the trash and clean up the library, things like that, so that\u2019s what I did.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI fell in love with the job, and that office,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cSo once I got out of law school, I decided to stay, and twenty years later, I became the head of that office.\u201d Bailey went from being a volunteer to trying 23 jury trials in his third year as a law student. And they weren\u2019t easy cases he said, \u201cThey were murder, rape, domestic violence\u2026 serious cases.\u201d Thurston Reynolds, a law professor who has taught at Jones since 1989 commented, \u201cI did not realize he tried 23 cases to a jury as a third-year student\u2014that is insane.\u202f Nobody does that.\u201d He is not surprised however, by Bailey\u2019s successes. \u201cEverything I remember hearing about him from lawyers or litigants over the decades has been good,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cThat is unusual for any district attorney who has been in that job as long as he has. There are opportunities to make enemies every day they go into court.\u201d   Bailey said that bail reform was the number one thing he wanted to address when he became DA. When the Alabama legislature approved the bill that would become Aniah\u2019s law, the DA\u2019s association worked hard to get that passed. \u201cWe were happy that they were finally paying attention to bail reform.\u201d As a DA, another main focus was to be a protector for those who couldn\u2019t protect themselves. \u201cYou don\u2019t realize until you start doing it, that the practice of law, especially as a prosecutor, is dealing with real people, real lives that have been impacted,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are depending on you to get justice and to make sure everyone knows what their family member meant. You\u2019re the only one acting as their voice, standing up for them\u2026 it\u2019s a lot of weight and a lot of pressure.\u201d One of Bailey\u2019s most widely known cases involved a shooting at a liquor store in Montgomery in 2002. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were involved in a multi-state murder spree that ended in the Washington, D.C., area that the media referred to as the DC sniper attacks (or Beltway sniper attacks). Evidence found at the crime scene in Montgomery eventually tied the killing to the Beltway attacks and allowed authorities to identify Muhammad and Malvo as suspects.  \u201cI actually went to Virginia to help them try those cases,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cIt was a highlight of my career.\u201d In addition to finding justice for victims, Bailey has also made a positive impact on those he prosecuted. \u201cThere\u2019s a guy I put in prison for life that calls me once a week,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cHe wrote me right after he went to prison to ask me what he could do to make himself a better person. I told him about following God\u2019s word and taking advantage of all the things they offer in prison to better yourself.\u201d Besides his family, Bailey says being DA was the highlight of his life. After serving in the DA\u2019s office for almost 30 years, he was eligible for retirement. He said he had been approached about running for attorney general, governor, mayor among other offices, but none of those jobs interested him. Although Bailey had a lot going for him politically, the one job he was interested in outside of being a prosecutor was working with college students. Toward the end of his career in the DA\u2019s office, he tried to recruit attorneys to come to Alabama. \u201cI\u2019ve hired students from all across the country, including ivy league schools, and the students from Faulkner were by far the best students I had as prosecutors,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cI really enjoyed recruiting law students and mentoring them and was excited about an opportunity to help alleviate the problem of not enough lawyers and not enough prosecutors. So, working at the law school became an obvious choice.\u201d \u201cJones Law School has turned from a part-time night school to full-time program that produces excellent lawyers that go all across the country to practice law.\u201d As Director of Admissions and Outreach for Faulkner Law, Bailey\u2019s main job is recruiting students to come to law school and working with alumni to become more involved. \u201cI told Dean Campbell and President Henry I wanted to do this or work on a golf course, but this has air conditioning!\u201d\u00a0"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/news\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"JSL alumnus fulfills dream of becoming a district attorney\u00a0","item":"https:\/\/www.faulkner.edu\/news\/jsl-alumnus-fulfills-dream-of-becoming-a-district-attorney\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]