Teresa Tanner Pulliam, a former Jefferson County judge and a longtime figure in the Birmingham legal community, died on Friday.
She was 67.
Pulliam was currently serving as the executive director of Redemption Earned, a legal nonprofit that works to help elderly and sick inmates in Alabama’s prisons earn parole.
“Judge Pulliam’s years on the Jefferson County trial court sharpened her sense of justice. She worked daily to protect the safety of the public, while giving those before her true fairness,” said Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, who currently serves as the president of the board of directors for Redemption Earned.
“She truly believed in the mission of Redemption Earned: rectifying injustice, both past and present. We are grateful for her tireless work for ‘the least of these.’”
A friend of Pulliam’s and fellow attorney Barry Ragsdale knew Pulliam for five decades.
“The state of Alabama has lost a true hero who leaves a legacy of justice and honor and dedication to the rule of law,” said Ragsdale. “I will miss her greatly and our state has lost a true champion.”
Pulliam served as a criminal circuit judge in Jefferson County for 18 years. Prior to that, she worked across the state in two district attorneys’ offices and in private practice.
A Huntsville native, Pulliam graduated with Ragsdale from Huntsville High School in 1976. “Judge Pulliam was an outstanding judge and an even better human being,” he said Friday afternoon. “Having known her for more than 50 years I can say that she was a shining example of everything that is good about the legal profession and always did what she knew to be right and just,” he said.
Retired Jefferson County Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam
Pulliam graduated from Birmingham Southern College and the University of Alabama School of Law. She worked as a prosecutor in the Mobile District Attorney’s Office before moving to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office in 1986.
While in the prosecutor’s office in Birmingham, Pulliam worked on several high-profile cases, including the brutal rape and murder of Tracey Diane Schoettlin in 1986.
Schoettlin had been working the late shift at a restaurant in Birmingham’s Five Points South when she got off work around 11 p.m. on July 13, 1986. She disappeared after buying oil at a nearby gas station.
Schoettlin’s body was found underneath a bridge at a Mountain Brook shopping center. She was stabbed 19 times.
Pulliam was on the prosecution team of the case, which became infamous in Birmingham and has been featured on several national TV crime shows. Thomas Paul Bradley was convicted of the slaying and sentenced to life in prison.
She also worked to prosecute Leon Albert Prince, a former Sunday school teacher who was convicted of rape and accused of dozens more rapes and molestations. The case garnered national headlines and became a landmark case. Prince served 15 years behind bars.
“If my presence at the hearing was allowed, I would be there in person to strongly object to his pardon request,’’ Pulliam wrote.“While (his victim’s) life-changing injuries for the repugnant and heinous crimes he committed to her should be all this Board needs to hear, it is important for the Board to know that Leon Prince is a serial pedophile.”
“This is one of the worst crimes I ever prosecuted or have ever seen as a defense attorney or as a Circuit Judge,’’ she wrote.
After her work in the district attorney’s office, Pulliam worked in private practice for 14 years. She then took the criminal bench in 2005.
While serving as a judge, she oversaw multiple capital murder cases. She also oversaw one of the appeals for Alabama Death Row inmate Toforest Johnson. That case is ongoing under Judge Kandice Pickett, who took over Pulliam’s seat.
Pulliam retired from the judgeship in 2023. She began working for Redemption Earned in 2024.
Now retired-Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro, who worked with Pulliam in the district attorney’s office and served on the bench at the same time, said Friday that the two had a longstanding friendship and that Pulliam was good to work with as a fellow judge.
Petro called Pulliam a “fabulous trial lawyer and a fabulous advocate.”
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Stephen Wallace also worked alongside Pulliam at the courthouse. “Judge Teresa Pulliam was an extraordinary jurist and person. She will be remembered not only for her skill on the bench, but for her kindness and compassion toward others.”
Pulliam had been an instructor for the National Judicial College in capital murder litigation and served as a past president of the Alabama Circuit Judges Association and of the Birmingham Bar Foundation. She was also on the state’s Prison Reform Task Force. According to Redemption Earned, Pulliam was “actively working towards prison and sentencing reform in the State of Alabama since 2008.”
She served on the state’s sentencing commission and was the Chairperson of the Alabama Supreme Court Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction Committee, according to Redemption Earned.
Pulliam was a member of the Alabama and Birmingham Bar Associations and was active in her community. She is survived by her husband, attorney Max Pulliam, and their daughter.
