Mark G. Hobbs, serving as Detective Sergeant at the Hoover Police Department, played an integral role in unveiling a corrupt ring of the Judicial System in Alabama that was infested with exhortation of bribes and strong ties to a South American narcotic drug cartel. Steve Joynt, an award-winning journalist with the Birmingham Post-Herald, gives an account of the events surrounding this ring and Hobbs' involvement in his book, Jack's Law.

The following are excerpts from Jack's Law:

"Usually local police officers and federal agents aren't the best of friends. The cops think the feds are too full of self-importance because they show up in the middle of an investigation and tend to take over. Mark Hobbs didn't have that reaction to Doug Althouse though. Hobbs was an undercover narcotics sergeant with the police department in Hoover, a bustling, upscale suburb south of Birmingham. He was setting up a $50,000 buy when Althouse, a fairly new agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), was brought in on the case. They all sat down, Hobbs laid out the plan, and Althouse said simply, 'Sounds good. Let's do it.'

'We hit it off from there,' Hobbs recalled. 'We just gelled perfectly.' As the cop (Hobbs) and the fed (Althouse) worked cases together, they became friends and their personal lives became intertwined.

They started working a case on a reputed multikilo cocaine dealer named Richard Morrow. Through their investigation, Hobbs and Althouse knew Morrow had a comfortable but not flashy house north of Birmingham and an apartment on the city's Southside. But they also knew they didn't have the full story - Morrow had to have a stash house. Where was it? They tailed him for days at a time, hoping he would unknowingly lead them to the stash house, but he never did.

Back in Birmingham, Hobbs had to pick up Morrow's scent again, just to test the waters and make sure that he and the tactical team wouldn't storm into something they weren't ready for. He had Morrow tailed for a day when suddenly he found himself being led to an unfamiliar location, a condo in Homewood - it was Morrow's stash house.

'I couldn't believe it. It was just so sweet. I wanted more than anything to tell Doug Althouse.'

The case against Richard Morrow landed in Jack's (Judge Jack Montgomery) courtroom to be passed on to a grand jury. 'I had been in Jack Montgomery's courtroom before,' Hobbs said. 'I had witnessed all of this antics, but I thought they were just that. As far as I knew, law enforcement considered him a friend.'

Jack gave Hobbs King's phone number and told him to arrange a meeting with all of them in Jack's chambers to show Morrow that they meant business about this informant thing. 'Oh, and by they way,' he said, 'what are you going to do with that Mercedes you took from Morrow?' Hobbs said he was eventually going to put it up for auction like all confiscated drug dealer cars. Jack then suggested that Hobbs let Morrow have it back in order to keep up appearances and his value as an informant.

Hobbs couldn't believe he was hearing this. He told Jack that he was not, under any circumstances, going to let Morrow have his car back. Hobbs then called King to set up the meeting, and King told Hobbs that he needed to let Morrow start selling drugs again before he could be any good as an informant. Hobbs thought that even a slow-witted bail bondsman knew that would be illegal.

'All I could think was that I had big problems,' Hobbs recalled. 'Politically I was way out of my league, and I had to figure out what to do.'

'We were in a heckuva jam. This judge was dirty, and he had corrupted the case.'

'If we ignored all of this and Jack Montgomery got caught, we would go to prison too. And if we tried to turn him in, that could be it for us.'

He handed the phone to Hobbs, and Brannan asked Hobbs if he would wear a wire to the meeting with Jack Montgomery. Hobbs said he would."