The Reply of the "Prosecutors" to the Scruggs Request for an Evidentiary Hearing

The "Special Prosecutors' Reply" to Scruggs' Request for an Evidentiary Hearing is an example of bad lawyering and worse logic.

First, the Respondents' make a character attack on Scruggs. Bad logic. They say he has shown disrespect "for them" because he did not refer to them as "Special Prosecutors." Of course he did not. To do so would have meant losing the point that they were not as alleged.

Second, they appeal to authority. Bad logic, again. Even worse logic than the first because they refer to their own authority. They say "[w]e accepted appointment after determining probable cause for the charge of criminal contempt was present." Unbeleivable. The point of the right to an evidentiary hearing is, in part, to determine probable cause. In every criminal proceeding a defendant is entitled to a hearing on probable cause. At least that is what I remember.

Third, they say Scruggs did not cite a case for his position calling for an evidentiary hearing. He did.

The so-called "special prosecutors" do not cite a case for their arguments until they get to page 4 of their 4 1/2 page Reply.

The cases they cite, do not support a denial of the "draconian relief" they say Scruggs seek -- that is, that the people who have presumed to be his prosecutors and the judge who selected them are to be truly independent and unbiased.