by Glynn Wilson

TOWN CREEK, Ala., Oct. 14 - Jill Simpson sits on a red clay and limestone beach using her hands to bunch the sand into balls, taking a Sunday break from the troubles she's caused - in the nation's capital and to Republicans in her native land.

Like a hand full of brave crusading lawyers who have traveled through the woods of Bucks Pocket in Northeast Alabama before and contemplated the state of the world by the water on a crisp autumn day, including some of the great names of the Civil Rights movement, Ms. Simpson stands at the center of a political storm that could rock the American system of justice to its core. Her story lifts the blindfold from the eyes of Lady Justice, if just for a moment.

After being attacked for the past few weeks in the biggest and richest newspaper chain in the state, by the governor's son no less, she seems undaunted and unafraid. She's fully aware that she is taking on some of the most loyalty-demanding politicians probably in American history.

She has violated their code and she knows it. Once this Rubicon is crossed, however, there's no turning back. She seems to have faith that, in the end, truth matters - and justice will prevail.

"I made the decision in May to speak truth to power. Anytime you speak truth to power, there are great risks," she says, after researching the subject on her computer and reading about other women who have taken on powerful men in the past. She mentions Anita Hill, who wrote a book about her experience testifying against Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed by the Senate anyway for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Ms. Simpson is a great admirer of women in history. She comes from a long line of accountants and farmers before that, Republicans primarily because they do not like taxes. Her people tend to strongly favor the University of Alabama football team on Saturdays in the fall, and that is where she went to college as an undergraduate and a law student - and where she came to know Rob Riley.

He is about to enter the political storm as well, it seems, or at least he vowed to in the Birmingham paper. He claimed he was going to write his own affidavit countering Ms. Simpson's charges.

Ms. Simpson occasionally lectures writers who fail to tell stories of great women. She is the kind of Southerner who can talk and talk all day, about German poetry, especially by women, but also about the plans for her farm in Dekalb County, her extensive collection of folk art from the Rev. Howard Finster, what's wrong with America under George W. Bush and his war in Iraq - or the concept of speaking truth to power.

"You have to understand, there are risks," she emphasizes. "I evaluated the risks. And the risks were, when I did the affidavit, that I would be brutally attacked. And, of course, that's what happened."

Then without a second thought, she finishes her Coca-Cola and sits back down in the canoe and paddles toward the other shore of Town Creek, pausing to admire a great blue heron flying off into the sunset.

In May of this year, after much legal research and a prolonged attempt to simply leak what she knew to Democrat lawyers - then after a great deal of soul searching - Ms. Simpson finally decided to thrust herself into the public spotlight, the political vortex, to expose a terrible problem she sees with the justice system.

She wrote and signed a damning, sworn affidavit offering evidence of collusion by the Bush Justice Department - and the political campaigns of Alabama Governor Bob Riley - to blatantly use the federal courts to win elections in a flagrant violation of the U.S. Constitution.

She has now testified in a sworn deposition to the House Judiciary Committee, which plans a series of hearings in the next few weeks with the theme, "Allegations of Selective Prosecution: The Erosion of Public Confidence in Our Federal Justice System."

CBS's Sixty Minutes has interviewed Ms. Simpson for an upcoming show on the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, one of the most popular Democrats in the South who is now locked up in a Louisiana jail cell alongside Edwin Edwards, the infamous former governor of Louisiana.

Siegelman's crime? Allowing a wealthy businessman to pay off the debt on a campaign - defeated by the Christian Right - to pass a lottery to fund education and Hope scholarships like the one's offered in neighboring Georgia.

Siegelman was relentlessly pursued by Bush appointees in the federal courts in Birmingham and Montgomery, where the powerful and staunchly conservative Business Council of Alabama seems to call the shots - along with direction from the White House.

Council president Bill Canary can pick up his cell phone and call his old friend Karl Rove just as easily as he can reach the publisher of the Birmingham News. Yet he and his wife, U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, deny having anything to do with prosecuting Siegelman. She allegedly recused herself, at least according to the press release, although she has never produced a copy of a signed recusal motion and none of the court records have yet been made public, not even the trial transcript.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark E. Fuller, the federal judge in the case, also a Bush appointee, has not spoken publicly or denied allegations unearthed by Ms. Simpson that he was a compromised Republican judge and a defense contractor who should have recused himself from hearing the case. The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has indicated it will take up that issue in the coming weeks.

U.S. Attorney Alice Martin in Birmingham tried to convict Siegelman of another malfeasance, but that case was thrown out of court before the opening arguments ever started.

Ms. Simpson watched those cases go down. Knowing what she knew from working on Governor Riley's campaigns with Rob, she says she just could not remain silent as the sentencing deadline for both defendants approached in June.

Her family has a long history of political involvement, but nothing like this. Her father knew George Wallace so well he helped Ms. Simpson get into law school, although while she was there, she was one of the most vocal Christian Republicans on campus and an ardent opponent of abortion in the heyday of the Moral Majority and Ronald Reagan.

Yet like a lot of educated people of her generation, she is full of surprising contradictions. She also served drinks at the blues pub Egan's on the strip in Tuscaloosa in those days, often pouring the whiskey for Bob and Rob Riley as they talked about politics and the future. Rob Riley went on from there to the law school at Yale and had big plans to one day run for governor himself.

Over the years Ms. Simpson has reevaluated how she feels about certain issues. She tends to side with Democrats on gay rights and the death penalty, but she doesn't like taxes any more than her parents and she still feels so strongly against abortion that she adopted a baby girl last year.

She has been married and divorced twice and has a 16-year-old son who plays Christian rock music and wants to go to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Virginia and become a preacher.

Since she has come forward her family has suffered a lot of grief, she testified in her statements to the House committee.

"It has been very stressful, and it's been difficult for my family," she testified.

Her mother, Jo Simpson, 73, comes from a long line of Republicans, and just loves former Senate Majority Leader Tom Delay, still. She cooks beef stew in a pressure cooker in the smaller house they are now confined to since a fire ruined their larger home down the street in February. It's been hard cleaning the black smoke residue off of what possessions they could salvage, she says, and it's hard living in a smaller, cramped place. And, she worries about her daughter, "sometimes."

Jill herself is not too worried, at least not today, and seems consigned to the fight that still lies ahead as the investigation goes to Washington. She has shunned having her face plastered all over the television news to date, but she may be called to testify in a public hearing before Congress, at which point the country will find out who she is and her picture will be all over the place.

Like a lot of other people in this part of the country, she awaits word on whether the three-judge appeals panel in Atlanta will release Siegelman and his co-defendant, Richard Scrushy of HealthSouth, on an appeal bond. Or perhaps they will order a mistrial due to improper behavior on the part of the jury for reading news coverage online and communicating by e-mail after a dynamite charge from the judge.

No matter what they say about her, she still feels like the risks and the grief will be worth it in the end.

"You know, I've been attacked, but you have to evaluate if the risks are worth it," she says. "Of course they are worth it."

Most people who speak truth to power feel a "moral obligation" to do it, she says, "and I certainly did. I just couldn't walk away from the fact - and there's no doubt about it - it was a political persecution."

She hopes people understand how hard it is to do, but she concludes: "I've done it, now. And I will take whatever consequences that may come from it - because it was the right thing to do."