Wikiscruggs Comment

There is more,

2010-11-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

Reading NMiss Commentator lately I have begun to think there is more about the Richard Scruggs matter which interests me. So, this site will be re-awakened.

I became interested again when I read a few comments at this run of comments.

In the past, I wondered why Judge Lackey became "a prosecutor" ('s) agent regarding Richard Scruggs. At the location mentioned, I see that others seem to be raising points which question Judge Lackey's real interest(s) in the whole Scruggs matter. These interests are quite oblique. The judge is presented as a hero of the law. But, I wonder. I hope he is pure as the driven snow (a term used on the Northern Tier), but I wonder.

Before, I have raised questions. Is it right for a judge to become an agent of the FBI? What does Judge Lackey's interest in law enforcement that say about the role of judges? Should the judge 's state tolerate this? What do the lawyers in the state think? Are they not troubled, at least a bit, at least enough to say something? Alas, I can find no criticism.

I recall implying, at least, that it seems quite untoward for Judge Lackey to be taking advantage of a friend of his, a young lawyer whom he had "mentored" -- to ruin his life. Ruining his friend's life enabled him (Judge Lackey) to bring down (I think he said something like this --Judge Lackey's nemesis? -- Richard Scruggs. (I am sure I said this somewhere) .

I recall saying (or at least thinking) why is this judge playing on his friend Tim Balducci to suck him into a bribe? Balducci merely engaged in bit of earwigging -- something quite common in Mississippi. So common the system had to say something about it -- what other jurisdiction has said something about earwigging? No one else has heard of the idea -- indeed when we do we mispell the term "earwhigging."

The good judge worked on friend from the spring to the fall as best I recall to get something from him about Richard Scruggs. My goodness, would any of you do this?

More impotantly, is this something judges do? -- become FBI agents? If so, the game played in Mississippi is quite odd, to say the least.

WSJ Blog Comment When DeLaughter Was Sentenced

2009-12-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

Here is the only comment to a WSJ Law Blog post regarding the sentencing of Judge Bobby DeLaughter put out in November, 2009:

Down here in MS wrote:
• Don’t close the book yet.
• Eaton v Frisby (a few little sealed documents in that case re Ed Peters)
• Several cases still pending against Scruggs (seems some other lawyers are now going after him)
• What about those 8 sealed documents in DeLaughter case? yea, docket seems to
‘jump’ over several hidden entries…
• What about PL Blake. Don’t know him? Check out 2004 transcript of Scruggs in Wilson v Scruggs case. Then check out 2005 trial transcript in Luckey v Scruggs. Oh, and there’s the little matter of the wiretaps in the Scruggs case. End of April this year, PL hired some lawyers. And US Atty confirmed in October ongoing
investigations.

I have an inkling there is more to come, . . .

2009-12-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

I have an inkling there is more to come regarding the Scruggs / Mississippi Courts Saga. So for now, at least, I am going to reawaken this site. See this Comment.

2009-05-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

The Sun Herald has an article by Anita Lee on January 21, 2008 telling us a bit more about PL Blake:

A man who remains somewhat of a mystery, former Delta farmer P.L. Blake, is also part of the mix. The Scruggs team earned around $1 billion suing tobacco companies, and although Scruggs has fought sharing his fees in this and other cases with some attorneys, he had no qualms about agreeing to pay Blake $50 million over 20 years for work that led to a multistate settlement of tobacco litigation.
Litigation against Big Tobacco in the mid to late 90s was a legal and political minefield. Scruggs and Moore have said Blake had an inside track on the politics. Blake has explained he simply clipped newspaper articles, watched C-SPAN and tried to gauge the political winds for Scruggs.
Patterson's attorney, Hiram Eastland Jr., 57, said as a young boy he frequently encountered the older Blake on the Eastland plantation in Doddsville. Eastland described Blake as a quiet and gentlemanly fellow, always with a crisp crease in his khakis.
Former Gov. J.P. Coleman thought of Blake as a son, Eastland said. Eastland's father, Hiram "Chester" Sr., and Chester Eastland's first cousin, powerful U.S. Sen. James O. Eastland, were friends to Blake. Young Hiram Jr. said his father and the senator didn't drink coffee, but kept a pot brewing on the plantation for Blake's visits.
Blake also happens to be close friends not only with Scruggs, but with Steve Patterson, a fellow horse-breeding enthusiast. Scruggs and Patterson trust Blake implicitly, court records show.

PL Blake and the New York Times

2009-05-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

This article in the New York Times by Nelson D. Schwartz is of interest -- The Legal Trail in a Delta Drama, January 20, 2008.

Pete Perry and the PL Blake File

2009-05-18T07:51:00.001-07:00

From a story by Bill Minor in the Desoto Times Tribune in on October 16, 2008 -- USDA boss Walters has checkered past -- we find this:

Another, Pete Perry, was fired in 1983 after numerous complaints about his management. Months after his departure, Perry was discovered by a longtime employee prowling through the agency's files on a Sunday night. It was later learned Perry had never turned in all his keys when he left the job. Somehow, no criminal or disciplinary action was ever taken by the USDA.

What adds a weird dimension to Perry's Sunday night escapade is that on a desk was found an open file of P.L. Blake, a large-scale agricultural operator from Greenwood who was then a target in a federal investigation into a Texas-based multi-million dollar farm loan scandal. Blake escaped any penalty in that case but several years later was nailed on a federal charge and fined for giving false information on a Mississippi bank loan.

Yes, this is the same P.L. Blake whose name surfaced earlier this year in the bizarre judicial bribery downfall of famed trial attorney Dickie Scruggs. Blake, evidence in the Scruggs prosecution had shown, was paid $10 million by Scruggs and promised up to $50 million to “keep his ear to the ground” and clip news stories (huh?) during Scruggs' management of lawsuits that recovered the multi-billion dollar damages against tobacco companies.

PL Blake and the $50 Million: Did he spread it around?

2009-05-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

This post is pure mental speculation. One might imagine PL Blake might have been spreading money around from the $50 million he was and is being paid in installments for his political/litigation efforts. One thinks a bit of the story line regarding the campaign lobbyist characters in John Grisham's The Appeal (2008).

In the Scruggs - Lackey matter it does not seem one could say that Mr. Blake was spreading money around.

Why? It is very simple. If he was spreading money around why would he have been involved in conversations in which the $40,000 Lackey requested bribe was to be paid by Scruggs? He would not have, he would have just paid it himself. But he didn't. And, any overtures by Balducci regarding the amount would not have involved Scruggs, but they did. Thus, by this event one could not say Mr. Blake was acting as a bagman.

But, one does wonder anew about the extent and customs of earwigging in Mississippi. Seems a bit reasonable.

Tom Anderson and Dick Scruggs

2009-05-18T07:07:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, NMC (Tom Freeland) on FOLO reported that Richard Scruggs had paid for over half of million dollars in campaign advertising for Tom Freeland in his campaign against George Dale for congress in Mississippi. See the March 2008 FOLO entry.

Here is Mr. Freeland's summary of some of the Tim Balducci grand jury testimony:

Patterson and Balducci went to meet Scruggs about the Anderson campaign, in which Scruggs had invested a half million dollars for t.v. commercials and print ads to beat George Dale, and when they went in, “Mr. Scruggs unsolicited said I’ve already alked to P.L. and I know Steve you’ve talked to P.L. and I just want you to know that everything’s okay. Y’all go ahead and get it done, and you’re covered.”

Balducci Testimony from FOLO.

P.L. Blake: The Move to Birmingham, Alabama

2009-05-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

P.L. Blake and Shirley F. Blake had lived in the Greenwood, Mississippi area for years -- for Mr. Blake since he was a child. In 2008 they were no longer to be found living in the area. They moved to a residential area south of Birmingham, into a new home in a housing development.

Records show they moved to 2101 Christina Cove, Birmingham, Alabama in 2008. See the Huffington Post Campaign Contribution Records.

The home is in a new residential area. It is not unlike other homes in the neighborhood. See, e.g., Zillow.com.

It must have been hard for the Blakes to leave Greenwood. Their roots in the area must have been very deep, even into the mysteries of the place, the land, the treasures of historical events. Such a move would have broken one's heart.

Robert E. Powell and P.L. Blake, Inc.

2009-05-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

Robert E. Powell was one of the incorporators with P.L. Blake of P.L. Blake, Inc. The records show his address on Old Highway 7 running between Greenwood and Holcomb. This is farm country.

Mark Blake has a home in Holcomb. The home is said to have been in the name of P.L. Blake until 2008. See FOLO.

Note, Shirley F. Blake lists a Greenwood address for political contribution purposes in 2000 and Birmingham for contributions in 2008.

PL Blake -- 1965 Business Location

2009-05-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

208 Fulton Street, Greenwood, MS -- An early place of business for P.L. Blake

According to records of the Mississippi Secretary of State, Corporation Division, P.L. Blake, Inc. did business at 208 1/2 Fulton Street. (Note in the picture, there are two doors at the address. One might be the "1/2" -- use of "1/2" at an address usually means the second floor of a location if the second floor has its own entrance.

The location is the office of the registed agent of of P.L. Blake, Inc., P.L. Blake, who was also an incorporator. Another incorporator was Robert E. Powell of Greenwood.

P.L. Blake, Inc. was incorporated in March of 1965. The corporation has been dissolved but the records do not show when. If I am right this must have been an early business of P.L. Blake. He would have been about 28 years of age (he graduated from university in 1959 and played professional football (in Canada?) for a time).

Mt. S. Helens, The Transitory Nature of Life, the Characters in the Scruggs Drama

2009-05-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

In two days it will be 20 years since the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington Cascade Mountains. With friends I climbed to the top of the mountain in 1976. It was a beautiful day, clear, not too warm. The summit was a perfect place from which to view Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters even further south in Cascade Mountains.

The mountain top we climbed is now gone. It exploded into fine dust and spread throughout the world. In Eastern Washington, 270 miles away, the dust came down like snow. I had over an inch of the stuff in my yard and on my house. The city was covered in a blanket of beige dust.

Colleen Rowell, one of our climbing group that day in 1976, is now deceased, her life claimed by Alzheimer's.

Why ponder about such things? It seems to me we have a hard time remembering the transitory nature of things. We want to deny the transitiveness which permeates existence.

So how does this apply to the Scruggs Matter? The Scruggs Matter and the characters and the actions of the characters in the matter are as much a part of the nature of things as the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens and the death of my friend, one of my snow skiing companions from 1959, the year P.L. Blake graduated from high school in Mississippi.

My interest in this "blog" is not to cast aspersions, it is to get to know the people in the drama.

Now some who read these words might be thinking "there are bad guys in this drama." Perhaps so, but remember the line between good and evil exists in every soul of every person and at all times. Not one of us is exempt from the commands and forces of nature.

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago [emphasis added].

PL Blake and Insurance Blog

2009-05-14T17:13:00.000-07:00

There is a wealth of information about PL Blake and his associations at this Rossmiller link.

PL Blake and Tom Anderson: Why?

2009-05-14T06:43:00.001-07:00

One would like to know what the connection between PL Blake and Tom Anderson was all about. PL Blake seemed to be with his wife (Shirley F. Blake) firmly placed int Greenwood, MS. From there they operated PLB Grain Storage for a time and Dewitt Corporation. Their son Mark Blake who seems to have had a business called Mark Blake & Associates. From Greenwood PL Blake and Shirley F. Blake made political contributions. See, e.g. this.

Tom Anderson had been in Washington, D.C. working for Trent Lott. Senator Lott had been a very powerful senator. Anderson was there when Lott had his power.

Now the two, according to the Scruggs testimony in Luckey v. Scruggs are tied together in something called Developing Markets Group.

Obviously, Blake and Anderson came together at least for a time. Blake to do what needed to be done in Mississippi and the surrounding area? Anderson to do what needed to be done in Washington, D.C.?

And, now one must wonder why PL Blake and Steve Patterson are getting tobacco money payments when there is no word that Tom Anderson is getting any.

This is an interesting puzzle. And that is really what is of interest. How the puzzle goes together. The news that PL Blake is hiring lawyers is part of the puzzle.

Who is Tom Anderson?

2009-05-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

From the Luckey v. Scruggs transcript earlier reported on this site, the big money flowed from Scruggs and his operation to DMG. Scruggs said “I think that stands for Developing Markets Group or something to that effect.”

He went on to say when asked “Who are they?” “I think -- I may be wrong, but I think it's Mr. Blake, but it could be Tom Anderson. I just don't know as I sit here now. Maybe you can show me something that will refresh my memory. It's one of the two of them, I think. "

Mr. Merkel next asks

Q Let's look at it. It says (reading:)
::As we discussed earlier today, the new payment to DMG will be 468,450 each quarter, an increase of 218,450 per quarter. This is based on the increase in fees from the base of 1.57 to 2.95 billion or an 87 percent increase. I assume we will review and adjust the amounts in June of2001, when all of the awards hopefully are finally realized. It then goes on to say what he's going to do. He says he's going to catch DMG up to the level that he should be and then he'll increase the amount each quarter starting in the third quarter by $218,450. Now, DMG, at least at that time your office thought was P.L. Blake, didn't it?

A I don't know. I said either P.L. Blake or Tom Anderson, who's provided
--

Q Did you send checks to Mr. Blake care of DMG for a period of time?

A My guess is we sent them to DMG or P.L. Blake or Mr Anderson, whoever was the principal at DMG, would be my guess.

So who is Tom Anderson? He was a longtime aide to Senator Trent Lott. The New York Times in October 1989 reported:

The 43-year-old Mr. Anderson, whose family runs a retail clothing chain in the area, has been a behind-the-scenes factor in Mr. Lott's longtime dominance in
the area.

As administrative aide and executive assistant to Mr. Lott,Mr. Anderson not only helped shape the combative persona that propelled Mr. Lott to a position of leadership as the House minority whip and a national spokesman for conservative causes, but also directed the important constituent services aspect of Mr. Lott's eight terms as Representative. The Strong Hand of Lott From the beginning Mr. Lott has taken a strong hand in pushing Mr. Anderson's candidacy. When the seat became vacant, he was believed to have discouraged Mr. Smith's widow and a number of others from running.

That has cut both ways for Mr. Anderson. On the one hand it has convinced some people that he will have access to the White House, but on the other it has raised the specter of bossism. A recent editorial cartoon in The Jackson Clarion-Ledger depicted Mr. Lott and Mr. Bush meeting at the airport, with the President carrying his lap dog, Millie, and Mr. Lott carrying a lap dog labeled Tom Anderson.

New York Times October 16, 1989 .

The Real Deal?

2009-05-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

What Richard Scruggs and AG Jim Hood and others did with the claims against the tobacco companies is interesting and in a way, unusual. I must say, however, it is not really that unusual. One could see the genesis of the complaint, of the actions, in the asbestos litigation and the approach used in the asbestos litigation.

The "personal injury lawyer" is a dime a dozen. Ron Motley, the guy on the cutting edge of the asbestos cases, was nothing unusual. He was an entrepreneur -- in the field of personal injury law.

He was successful and we love success in the USA. Do we ever, we bend over backwards to advance THEIR causes, advance the causes of the gamblers, the great "Legal Eagles" -- how extraordinarily banal. And the causes, well, the "great causes"are really quite limited. And, when they are successful the "little guys" end up paying the damages, and, the attorney's fees and costs.

But things are worse than one might imagine. When have you ever heard of a PI lawyer taking a case with questionable liability, of questionable proximate cause? Let's be honest, the lawyers of the the great trial lawyers associations are good, mostly, at culling cases. The cases taken are those which have clear settlement value.

By the way, the lawyers on the other side were not much different in terms of opportunism. They were the apparatchiks of the "establishment." The exemplars of the Bernie Madoff style of success -- good name recognition, acceptance at the most prestigious country clubs, a likable, calm, confident. A pillar of success. The appearance of success.

The tobacco case and the various state AGs and their "retainers" in the case (I should not have said that, in the personal injury plaintiff's bar) were ready to be picked, plucked. To be culled into the "great case."

Washington state was no different than any other state -- Government Party AG (her name is Chris Gregoire) tied into the "big" litigation with "big" lawyers. Vanity law, one might call it.

And, were successful! So successful, every poor soul who smokes, and more and more poor souls who become smokers, and as they become poorer and poorer (the new effort of ruling class to make use of the poor while they say they are trying to help the poor), are now, and will be, paying for the damages and the attorneys' fees the tobacco companies have agreed to pay.

(We are all so content with our liberalism. So narcissistic we fail to realize the people whose causes we so vehemently champion are the ones who are paying for our "gosh we are so good liberalism," our "good politics.")

All thanks to PL Blake and his newspaper clipping services.

But let us face it, "we are a collection of fools, a covey of dissimulators. We are people who lie and who kid ourselves into thinking we are really good people. Good people because -- well, because "we care, and we on the right side." And we think we are making the rich suffer. And, we are too naive and self-satisfied to think, to know, the poor are paying for the satisfactions of our vanities.

It is all so complicated. But, the truth be told, there are bad people at work in all of this. And, I suspect the bad people who exist are also aligned with the good people we think exist.

Right now I am thinking PL Blake made his $50 million because of his Washington D.C. and Mississippi and the South political connections. PL Blake inherited something, he inherited a network of power. Who did he inherit it from? Maybe it was his own, but I have yet to know of a professional football player who had the talent to create a power network such as that which PL Blake must have been using. Something else is there, something to be found out.

PL Blake, Timing, Judicial Corruption

2009-05-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

As an outside observer I have the impression there may have been over the years a milieu of judicial corruption where judges were, perhaps routinely, discussing the cases before them with others. Mississippi seems to have a rich tradition of "earwigging."

I wonder when PL Blake started to get large chunks of money from Richard Scruggs. In the early 1990's.

I wonder how much earwigging took place regarding the "tobacco litigation" which seemed to start for Scruggs and Hood and others in the early 1990's.

I wonder whether any earwigging regarding the tobacco cases was even necessary. Maybe there were no state cases. Of course, I think I know the answer to that. So I will dig for what I think I know.

Strange Stuff

2009-05-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Maybe learning about Billie Sol Estes would be worth it while we wait to learn more of PL Blake:

In 2003 Estes published JFK, the Last Standing Man (co-written with William Reymond) in France (Le Dernier Temoin). In the book Estes claims that Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When interviewed by the American journalist, Pete Kendall, Estes said: “He (Johnson) told me if I wouldn’t talk, I would not go to jail.” Estes has had no contact with LBJ’s other long-ago associates, he said, since the book’s publication. “About all of them are dead, really. I think I’m about the last one standing.” That’s partly why, he said, he wasn’t interested in doing a book sooner. “I’ve been accused of being dumb,” he said, “but I’m not stupid.”

Billie Sol Estes: A Texas Legend

More Good Stuff from FOLO

2009-05-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Jerry Mitchell on Patterson (Mostly Blake).

When did the money start to flow?

2009-05-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Q And, Mr. Scruggs, you began in 1994 to loan P.L. Blake monthly amounts of money that started out at $15 thousand a month and escalated to $25 thousand a month. Actually, I guess the first one is November the 20th, 1993. Is that right?
A Sounds right.
From the transcript in Luckey v. Scruggs.

Pecos Enterprise: Billie Sol Estes

2009-05-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

From the Pecos Enterprise one finds a wealth of information about Billie Sol Estes.

Some Bits about PL Blake from Folo

2009-05-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

This post and its comments contain useful and interesting information and speculation about PL Blake.
http://www.folo.us/2008/02/26/holy-s-t-balducci-state-farm-jim-hood-scruggs-all-together-in-one-paragraph/

The Plainview, Texas Elevator

2009-05-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am told this elevator was built by Billie Sol Estes. I am also told it was owned by PL Blake and the Dewitt Company while PL was living in Greenville, MS. It sure is a beauty. I bet a picture or two at ground level would be even more impressive.

NMC, PL Blake, Lotus and the TRUTH

2009-05-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

There is discussion in the ether as to why NMC has been employed by PL Blake. There is more discussion as to when this employment took place -- when he and PL Blake or Blake's representatives began discussing his employment as an attorney for PL Blake. In any event, his website has been compromised. Mr. Freeland's employment by PL Blake after, or during a month's worth of testimony by Richard Scruggs to a grand jury in Oxford, comes as a real surprise to us innocents out in the hustings. I suppose we all thought NMissCommenter was interested in laying out the truth of events. But now, we hear NMC can't say, will not say, anything about Scruggs I -- (that's the Judge Lackey "I am a Government Agent" bribery case. NMC is a cheerleader for Judge Lackey).

One does not know what to think -- well, except for this: Does Freeland's retainer say more about how someone like PL Blake works than it says about Freeland? One would suppose. Isn't money great! The truth be told the employment of Freeland by Blake says more about PL Blake than it says about Tom Freeland. (Who seems like a nice guy, except for his desire, his penchant, for cooking pigs.)

Where is Lotus? Where is the truth seeking and irreverence of Lotus? Where is this very special talent? Lotus, come back! Your friends and the TRUTH need you.

Send her an email at lotusflowah@widouta.net.

This very unusual woman was able to do something quite unusual -- bring a good number of minds together in discussion. Her website was the cutting edge.

Luckey v. Scruggs: Some Scruggs testimony about PL Blake

2009-05-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Luckey v. Scruggs
Transcript
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI
ALWYN H. LUCKEY PLAINTIFF
VERSUS NUMBER 1:05CV00089-JAD
RICHARD F. SCRUGGS, ET AL DEFENDANT
--------------------------------------------------------------
TRIAL TRANSCRIPT
JUNE 8, 2005
--------------------------------------------------
BEFORE: U.S. Magistrate Jerry A. Davis
TAKEN: June 6-1 7, 2005 LOCATION: Federal Building, Oxford, MS
A-P-P-E-A--R-A-N-C- E-S
HONORABLE CHARLIE MERKEL
HONORABLE CINDY MITCHELL
HONORABLE STEVE COX
HONORABLE WILL RAIFORD
REPRESENTING THE PLAINTIFF
HONORABLE JACK DUNBAR
HONORABLE JONES
HONORABLE ELLINBURG
HONORABLE JOEY LANGSTON
HONORABLE TIM BALDUCCI
HONORABLE CATHERINE HOWIE
REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANT
REPORTED BY: DEBORAH A. HARRIS, RMR, CRR, CSR Official Court Reporter
MR. MERKEL: Let's look at Exhibit 795.
(DONE.)
BY MR. MERKEL:
Q Now, Mr. Scruggs, this is a memo to you from Allen Jones. Who's Allen Jones?
A Allen Jones worked for my law firm in a capacity similar to what Mr. DeLoach did for a while. He took care of various accounting matters and things like that.
Q Now, who's DMG, Mr. Scruggs?
A I think that stands for Developing Markets Group or something to that effect.
Q Who are they?
A I think -- I may be wrong, but I think it's Mr. Blake, but it could be Tom Anderson. I just don't know as I sit here now. Maybe you can show me something that will refresh my memory. It's one of the two of them, I think.
Q Let's look at it. It says (reading:)
::As we discussed earlier today, the new payment to DMG will be 468,450 each quarter, an increase of 218,450 per quarter. This is based on the increase in fees from the base of 1.57 to 2.95 billion or an 87 percent increase. I assume we will review and adjust the amounts in June of2001, when all of the awards hopefully are finally realized.
It then goes on to say what he's going to do. He says he's going to catch DMG up to the level that he should be and then he'll increase the amount each quarter starting in the third quarter by $218,450. Now, DMG, at least at that time your office thought was P.L. Blake, didn't it?
A I don't know. I said either P.L. Blake or Tom Anderson, who's provided --
Q Did you send checks to Mr. Blake care of DMG for a period of time?
A My guess is we sent them to DMG or P.L. Blake or Mr Anderson, whoever was the principal at DMG, would be my guess.
Q And tell us what P.L. Blake did for $468 thousand a quarter through the year 2023 and $10 million on the front end, $50 million more or less?
A This was --- this litigation from the beginning was quite unorthodox in terms of meeting fire with fire. The tobacco industry had all sorts of resources, particularly political resources, and as I explained yesterday, it was as much a political war as it was a legal war. P.L. Blake lived in Greenwood, and I think hunts with you on a regular basis.
Q No, sir, he doesn't. I never hunted with P.L. Blake in my life, Mr. Scruggs, but whatever.
A He told me you shared a hunting cabin with him somewhere up north.
Q He paid for a pheasant hunt at the same place I paid for a pheasant hunt. I had never met him before. But that's kind of neither here nor there.
A But P.L. Blake was a sort of a political operative in terms of being involved in state and national political affairs. One of these guys that's sort of always behind the scenes, but has his ear to the ground. He was our sort of response from 1994 on, maybe even late '93, when we first started thinking about this, to what the tobacco industry was doing. They had a network that was far more extensive than that, and we wanted to be alerted to political attacks before they actually hit us in the nose. For example, Governor Fordice filing suit to shut the whole litigation down in '95 or '96. Things like that. We needed to know things like that before they happened so we could head them off, and Blake had a network throughout the state and really throughout the nation that would sort of give us that heads-up information.
Q Well, let's talk about your relationship with P.L. Blake, Mr. Scruggs. You represented him in bankruptcy at one point, did you not, sir?
A I think in the early '80s, yes.
Q And you were still representing him in that, in fact, in the late '80s, were you not?
A As long as the bankruptcy case was alive. Sometimes they take years.
Q And P.L. Blake was also indicted and ultimately pled guilty to some type of a federal bank fraud type of situation in the early '90s?
A It seems to me that he pleaded guilty to some sort misdemeanor involving a bank, yes.
Q And as a result of that he was ordered by a federal district court in the Southern district to make restitution for some several million dollars to the FDIC or something of that sort?
A Perhaps. I don't recall what he was required to do. I'm sure he had something imposed on him if he pleaded to a misdemeanor.
Q And so he had a restitution amount over him and he had had -- he was in bankruptcy in the late '80s?
A Perhaps, at various times. I don't know the timing of it, but both of those events happened.
Q And, Mr. Scruggs, you began in 1994 to loan P.L. Blake monthly amounts of money that started out at $15 thousand a month and escalated to $25 thousand a month. Actually, I guess the first one is November the 20th, 1993. Is that right?
A Sounds right.
Q What was the purpose of those loans that you were making to him?
A The purpose of the loans was to do exactly what I just described.
Q What is that?
A To --
Q Were they payments -- were they salary or payments you were making or were they loans, Mr. Scruggs? Which were they?
A They were loans.
Q Why did you make loans to a man who was in bankruptcy and who was coming out from under a criminal situation with a large restitution amount hanging over his head?
A I assume he needed the the money to make restitution,
Q Did he did he give you any collateral?
A Other than his enormous network of political connections in the state and otherwise, no, he didn't have any -- he didn't give me any collateral for it, no, but he did sign a note every month.
Q Signed a note with 8 percent interest on it that you were going to charge him on those notes; correct?
A I think so. Whatever the prevailing rate at the time was.
Q And by the time the tobacco settled and he got those first of those million dollar -- four million dollar, five million-dollar amounts, he had run up a loan account with you of some 900 -- between $950 thousand and a million dollars, hadn't he?
A It could have been that much with interest, which was deducted from whatever he got paid. He paid it back that way.
Q Tell us, if you would, Mr. Scruggs, other than the generalities of how well connected P.L. Blake was and this, that, and the other, anything specific P.L. Blake did to get $10 million up front and a percentage of tobacco fees calculated at $468,450 per quarter.
A I talked to P.L. Blake on a fairly routine basis throughout the process of this litigation about what might be going on in the legislature, what Fordice might be up to through people that he knew. He obviously didn't readily disclose his methods and sources, as the term is now used, but he knew the key people in the various congressional offices in 1996 when political resolution of this started looking promising and it was very helpful providing the names of who these people were and backgrounds on them.
Q With all deference, I mean $50 million seems to be, to me, to be a sizable sum. Can you tell us anything P.L. Blake specifically did? Any piece of information or intelligence that he delivered that was -- couldn't have been found by reading the newspapers and listening to the TV?
A I think I just did. You don't find out who's who in Washington or who's -- who the behind the scenes movers and shakers at the state capital are by reading the newspaper. You know who the committee chairs are and people like that, but what's really going on back there inside baseball, I don't think you can find that out, and he kept us routinely informed.
Q Tell me some routine intelligence he gave you. Give me the name of a senator or something that was fixing to do so and so. Just something specific, Mr. Scruggs.
A Well, he had a relationship with Senator Biden.
Q Did he bring you some intelligence from Senator Biden? Maybe he knew him, but did he bring you anything that Mr. Biden told him that you couldn't have found out otherwise?
A Well, I didn't know Senator Biden at the time.
Q Okay. Did he tell you something?
A I know him pretty well now, but I didn't know him at the time.
Q Well, actually you paid Senator Biden's brother a bunch of money, too, at the same period of time, didn't you?
A No, I paid Mr. Biden's brother's -- I think he was affiliated with a lobbying firm and it wasn't an enormous amount of money. We hired a lot of lobbyists on the hill at that time period of time.
Q Don't you think his brother could have been giving you whatever intelligence about his brother's thoughts probably better than P.L. Blake could?
A That would seem reasonable, but P.L. Blake's involvement and the intelligence that he was providing us preceded that involvement with Jim Biden by a long long time.
Q What intelligence were you ever provided, Mr. Scruggs? Can you give us one concrete example of some intelligence that came from Mr. P.L. Blake for $50 million?
A I can give you examples, I didn't make any notes of this. I didn't sit down and write it down.
Q These aren't the kinds of things that people write down or write letters about?
A He was very tuned in to the effort to unseat Attorney General Moore in 1995.
Q That wasn't very private information, was it, Mr. Scruggs? I thought Fordice was all over the papers and TV and everything else hollering about that daily?
A Well, we knew about it from P.L. Blake long before he actually did anything.
Q Let me show you, Mr. Scruggs, Exhibit 240. This is, I believe, 13 newspaper clippings that P.L. Blake provided at the time of his deposition which is what he said he provided to you. Did you get those newspaper clippings from him?
A If he said so, I did, but he certainly gave us far more than just what was in the newspaper. Why would I, out of my pocket, pay him that sort of money?
Q That's what I'm trying to find out, because that's basically what he said he did in his deposition. You read his deposition, haven't you, sir?
A No.
Q Never have?
A No, I have not. Never ever.
Q Okay.
A And I would understand why he would be reluctant to disclose his inside baseball political connections. I would understand that.
Q You think he would misrepresent things under oath, Mr. Scruggs? Is that what you're saying?
A I don't think he would.
Q Well, if he said he had never talked to any politician and he never talked to anybody at the tobacco industry and he simply listened and read newspapers over the state and gave you the information that's there, can you give us anything else he did concrete beyond that?
A I think I already have, I don't know how to answer that any better, sir.
THE COURT: This is another area we're not going to get agreement on.
BY MR. MERKEL:
Q I put 795 back up and direct your attention to the last line at the bottom to Mr. Jones, It says: I appreciate your getting me a copy of a handwritten agreement with Mr. Blake for the file when you get a chance.
Did you ever provide that handwritten agreement to Allen Jones?
A I don't recall whether I did or not.
Q We've never been provided it, is the reason I'm asking. Is there such an agreement, Mr. Scruggs, that apparently set out why you were going to calculate that exact amount up there based on the fees?
A If there is, I'm not aware of one. That doesn't mean there isn't one.
Q Let me show you another exhibit, Exhibit 787, September 29th, 2000. Again, to you from -- well, to the file with a carbon copy to you from Allen Jones, talks about DMG-Blake again. It says (reading:)
::The payments to Anderson Sears have segmented to the individual members as follows, with the responsibility for payment, in parentheses, DMG-Blake, base amount 250,000 per quarter as long as tobacco fees are collected from the industry, obligations of Ness-Motley, Scruggs Millette 60/40 split or 100,000 Ness and 100,000 Scruggs; 2000 has been paid added amount based on ratio of increase from Mississippi, Florida, Texas base to the total awards, calculation attached, and now added 218,450.
And at the top it he says in handwriting: Can I get a copy of the Blake agreement you mentioned for the file? Allen. Was there an agreement, Mr. Scruggs?
A I think it was more of a handshake agreement than anything else. I don't recall a written agreement with Mr. Blake.
Q Why did Mr, Jones think there was when he was writing all those letters?
A I told Mr. Jones that we had an understanding or agreement and perhaps he assumed that it was in writing. You'll have to ask him. He was brand new at that time and perhaps didn't quite understand how things had been working.
Q Seems he was making a fairly sophisticated complicated calculation based on all these tobacco fees to come up with Mr. Blake's 218,450 addition, Mr. Scruggs. How did he get the information to make that calculation?
A He got it based on what he says he got it on. It was an increase based on the Most Favored Nation clause to the fees that came in to all counsel, Ness-Motley, and the Scruggs firm and everybody else.
Q Did you have a written agreement with Mr. Blake to split the fees of the tobacco litigation, Mr. Scruggs?
A I don't think we did. I don't recall one.
Q Did you have a verbal one that you communicated to Mr. Jones enough to let him calculate that like he did?
A I told Mr. Jones at some point in time that Mr. Blake and I had an agreement as to how much he would be paid on a quarterly basis and when the fees were subsequently increased as a result of the Most Favored Nation clause, or for whatever reason, told Mr. Jones to increase it.
Q Are you aware that it's an ethical violation to split fees with a non-attorney?
A I didn't think that it was splitting fees, I think it was just paying Mr. Blake for the work he had done, which was quite considerable, most of which was coming out of my pocket.
Q When you calculated based on an increase in fees, that wasn't splitting fees?
A It didn't occur to me that it was, and I would take issue with that being unethical.
Q You do agree that the canons of ethics say it's improper for any attorney to share fees with another attorney other than is commensurate with their work?
A I'm generally familiar with Rule 1.5.
Q Yes, sir, that's the one,
A And Mr. Blake --
Q Is not an attorney?
A No, he did -- but that's not the question. You asked me about splitting fees with lawyers that don't do any work.
Q Yes, sir. That would be more like Mr. Nutt?
A It would be more like Mr. Luckey.
Q Did Mr. Nutt do 400 to $500 million worth of work on this case, Mr. Scruggs?
A Mr. Merkel, I guess we can argue again about it. We talked about it all afternoon yesterday about what Mr. Nutt did.

Billie Sol Estes

2009-05-11T16:54:00.000-07:00

Let's get started on the trail of PL Blake -- Is Billie Sol Estes a place to start? Wikipdia And, here is some more http://www.billiesolestes.com/. Keep digging, it really gets good (if I remember right). Intrigue, conspiracy theories, LBJ, Orville Freemn (a Secretary of Arigculture) people mysteriously leaving the living. Spartacus, stuff, http://home.earthlink.net/~sixthfloor/estes.htm,

PL Blake as a Public Figure

2009-05-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Blake v. Gannet

Country Cooking

2009-05-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Mississippi is a most mysterious place. Catch this bit of musing http://the-man-from-porlock.blogspot.com/2009/05/darn-sarf-they-do-things-different.html#comments.

Note the first comment and who is mumpfing.

That P.L. Blake is going to be a hoot! $50 Million for clipping news stories? One must suppose that's plausible.

But not as plausible as the resurrection of Avalon, MS and Mississippi John Hurt.

PL Blake and the New York Times

2009-05-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

PL Blake and the New York Times

P.L. Blake and the Tobacco Litigation? Guess Not.

2009-05-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Here is a short piece about P.L Blake's supposed entry in the public discussion about the Scruggs I matter. Anita Lee, Journalist. Of the Sun Herald. I note the piece says something to the effect that Mr. Blake is not being looked at regarding the "tobacco litigation." That's a little hard to believe. Just what did he do for the $50 million he is being paid? And, for some reason some of the fiction in John Grisham's The Appeal come to mind.

P.L. Blake

2009-05-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

The news out of Mississippi and Oxford is that P. L. Blake is hiring lawyers, several of them. The activity relates, supposedly, to Scruggs I, the Judge Henry Lackey alleged bribery. Remember Judge Lackey, the state judge who became a federal government agent. Oxford counsel for P.L. Blake is Tom Freeland a man who had very gushing things to say about Judge Lackey several months ago.

Judge DeLaughter and the Lott Telephone Call

2009-03-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

Senator Lott made a phone call to Judge Bobby DeLaughter. He had heard Judge DeLaughter wanted to become a federal judge. Doesn't every state court trial judge want to become a federal judge -- the benefits and working conditions are really quite nice. Was the call some sort of quid pro quo to get Judge DeLaughter to rule in favor of the interests of Richard Scruggs? Pretty doubtful. Maybe it was a Scruggs effort to get his brother-in-law to flatter Judge DeLaughter, to soften him so that he would think favorably of Mr. Scruggs. This sort of stuff, I suspect, happens all the time in the world of politics and the politics of the judicial fraternities these days.

So, Judge DeLaughter took the call, maybe he was even flattered (one finds it hard to think one would be flattered by a call from Senator Lott, or any senator -- they are not people who are above us lumpen electorate), but not a bit of this causes suspicion as far as I am concerned.

One wonders whether the prosecutor is going to use this call by Senator Lott to play on the illusions of members of a jury panel. It's a game, you see.

For a Light Hearted Update See This:

2009-03-26T18:35:00.001-07:00

For a light hearted and breezy update on the Scruggs Events see The Fort Mill Times.

I still have trouble with Judge Henry Lackey. Seems to me judges should not serve as agents of the FBI. This is not said in defense of Mr. Scruggs and the cast of idiots who seemed to gravitate to him.

Sara Jane Olson

2009-03-24T06:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a piece in the New York Times about Sara Jane Olson, a woman involved in bank robbery, death, and the attempted bombing of police. She's spending her time on parole coming out of prison in California at her home in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The case highlights for me the double standard of our judicial system and its punishments. Seems people like Mrs. Olson, generally white people, connected people, people who have conformed to a societal elite, seem to do better in their experience than would one who does not have such worldly credentials.

The recent jury acquital (nullification of the law) by a Spokane jury of Police Officer Jay Olsen, a man who left a gay bar in downtown Spokane very late one night or early one morning and took shots at Shonto Pete, a Native American, who was well away from Olson and running for his life down a steep bluff. For more go to The Spokesman-Review.

Conrad Black

2009-03-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Another person in prison these days who was on the top of the pile is Conrad Black. Here is an interview with him one year into to his six year sentance. National Post.

"If any have offended against thee?" Marcus Aurelius

2009-02-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

Consider whence each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed, and that it will sustain no harm. If any have offended against thee, consider first: What is my relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another respect, I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock or a bull over the herd. But examine the matter from first principles, from this: If all things are not mere atoms, it is nature which orders all things: if this is so, the inferior things exist for the sake of the superior, and these for the sake of one another.
Second, consider what kind of men they are at table, in bed, and so forth: and particularly, under what compulsions in respect of opinions they are; and as to their acts, consider with what pride they do what they do.
Third, that if men do rightly what they do, we ought not to be displeased; but if they do not right, it is plain that they do so involuntarily and in ignorance. For as every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, so also is it unwillingly deprived of the power of behaving to each man according to his deserts. Accordingly men are pained when they are called unjust, ungrateful, and greedy, and in a word wrong-doers to their neighbours.
Fourth, consider that thou also doest many things wrong, and that thou art a man like others; and even if thou dost abstain from certain faults, still thou hast the disposition to commit them, though either through cowardice, or concern about reputation, or some such mean motive, thou dost abstain from such faults.
Fifth, consider that thou dost not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstances. And in short, a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgement on another man's acts.
Sixth, consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.
Seventh, that it is not men's acts which disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men's ruling principles, but it is our own opinions which disturb us. Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss thy judgement about an act as if it were something grievous, and thy anger is gone. How then shall I take away these opinions? By reflecting that no wrongful act of another brings shame on thee: for unless that which is shameful is alone bad, thou also must of necessity do many things wrong, and become a robber and everything else.
Eighth, consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed.
Ninth, consider that a good disposition is invincible, if it be genuine, and not an affected smile and acting a part. For what will the most violent man do to thee, if thou continuest to be of a kind disposition towards him, and if, as opportunity offers, thou gently admonishest him and calmly correctest his errors at the very time when he is trying to do thee harm, saying, Not so, my child: we are constituted by nature for something else: I shall certainly not be injured, but thou art injuring thyself, my child.- And show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and that even bees do not do as he does, nor any animals which are formed by nature to be gregarious. And thou must do this neither with any double meaning nor in the way of reproach, but affectionately and without any rancour in thy soul; and not as if thou wert lecturing him, nor yet that any bystander may admire, but either when he is alone, and if others are present...
Remember these nine rules, as if thou hadst received them as a gift from the Muses, and begin at last to be a man while thou livest. But thou must equally avoid flattering men and being vexed at them, for both are unsocial and lead to harm. And let this truth be present to thee in the excitement of anger, that to be moved by passion is not manly, but that mildness and gentleness, as they are more agreeable to human nature, so also are they more manly; and he who possesses these qualities possesses strength, nerves and courage, and not the man who is subject to fits of passion and discontent. For in the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength: and as the sense of pain is a characteristic of weakness, so also is anger. For he who yields to pain and he who yields to anger, both are wounded and both submit.
But if thou wilt, receive also a tenth present from the leader of the Muses (Apollo), and it is this- that to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility. But to allow men to behave so to others, and to expect them not to do thee any wrong, is irrational and tyrannical.
Marcus Arelius, Meditations, Book XI [Emphasis added.]

Dogs on a Lake

2009-02-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

The topic of this site is a hard one. Men are being put in jail. Their lives are changing in ways not one of us who has not ever experienced what they are going through could begin to understand. Perhaps though, with some imagination and remembrance of hard times in our own lives, we might get an idea of what it must be like.

Some of us would like to avoid an existential understanding what these "others" are going through by saying they are guilty and they deserve punishment.

So be it, but let us face the truth. Not one of us is innocent. No, not one. If one would look closely he or she would see a truth -- not one of us is innocent. And, one way or another we deserve punishment.

So, why the picture of dogs on a frozen lake in Eastern Washington just below a place where people who are not like us are, in essence, incarcerated in a hospital -- Medical Lake, Washington? Why not?

Earwigging: Financing Judicial Campaigns

2009-02-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

The financing of judicial campaigns is a form of earwigging. Political forces, whether they be individuals or groups, seek the election of judicial candidates who will decide cases in certain favorable ways to the individual or group. In our electoral process money is speech. Political forces therefore spend money to get certain people elected. These forces do not spend speech money out of the goodness of their hearts. They expect a certain form of "speech" from the people they get elected. The speech they expect is speech from the benches of our judicial system -- the super-legislatures of today's "democracies." It is just human nature.

Judicial campaign financing is a form of earwigging.

Judge Bobby DeLaughter and Earwigging

2009-02-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

The government is going to have a tough row to hoe to convict Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

It is going to have to show that DeLaughter knew he was being bribed, knew that he was actually knowingly involved in the efforts of Richard Scruggs and his cast of characters (at the time well thought of by the community and the sub-community of lawyers) to influence him.

My guess is DeLaughter will show he was being "earwigged." Earwigging has a rich tradition in Mississippi. It is the only state that has specific rules devoted to trying to minimize earwigging. The Mississippi judicial conduct commission proceedings are replete with conduct involving ex parte contact between judges and litigants and others – earwigging.

The evidence at the DeLaughter trial will include all sorts of facts about the extent earwigging takes place in Mississippi. We will learn judicial cases are, in essence, political events whereby the judge treated like a composite of individuals making up a legislature. We will learn that lawyers and litigants and their friends have routinely contacted judges about cases and have done so in a host of imaginative ways. That is, that judges are routinely lobbied about the cases before them. We will learn that money does not have to change hands. We will learn that judges dearly like to be loved and thought well of by members of the community, members of the community they respect.

We may even learn what P. L. Blake was doing for his $50 million and what the hell Patterson was doing for his $80,000 per month.

Another Guilty Plea and Two More Years on His Sentence

2009-02-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

Richard Scruggs pled guilty to more crimes yesterday in Aberdeen, Mississippi. He will serve 7 years but the time will be concurrent so his total prison time will be 7 years. Maybe he will qualif for some sort of parole. Maybe not. If he serves the full 7 years he will be out when he is about 69 years old.

The pictures of Mr. Scruggs yesterday seemed to show that prison had brought about great changes in him. He was thin. Gaunt even, a person who had obviously been going through dramatic changes. Yet, in a way, it seemed as though he was a man in process, a man who was evolving from something he was into something new. Looking close one could tell prison and the changes he was undergoing, the punishment he was experiencing, was having a positive effect.

Perhaps for the first time he was beginning to see something he had only seen from afar. Was it the look of defeat that I saw? Maybe, but only in a worldly sense. Instead, I think I saw a person for whom a light was beginning to shine and was going to light up his soul.

Law and lawyering in America today is a sad business. The success some think they experience is not real.

Personal Success In America

2009-02-08T19:10:00.000-08:00

In America as elsewhere we like to think people who break the law and go to jail are not like us. We like to think we are different, we are better citizens, not prone to bad or illegal behavior. The judges whom we respect without question look kindly upon us. We write about those who have failed, who have gotten caught, have caused harm and think -- they are bad and I am good we silently say to ourselves. We say, "they are subject to reproach, but not me."

Plea Bargains

2009-02-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

The news from Mississippi tells of another plea bargain in the offing between Richard Scruggs and the US Attorney. There will be more such bargains perhaps. The trouble with these plea bargains is that we do not get to know all of the facts surrounding the wrongdoing. There will be some sort of admission of guilt as to a particular crime by the person reaching the bargain, but there will not be an exposition of the facts, in any great degree, in and about the wrong doing.

One supposes that the wrongdoing in Mississippi between judges and lawyers is pervasive. To what extent we will never know.

Prison: Wondering What It Must Be Like

2009-01-21T07:39:00.000-08:00

Living into your 60's gives one the chance to to know and have known people who have found themselves punished by establishment. Some of these acquaintences have been jailed or will be jailed. Some have been ordered to pay substantial sums of money for conduct determined to have been committed and determined to have been wrong. Some are caught in the system are waiting for the system to set out their worldly fate or waiting for the system to start a round of prosecution.

For the most part we do not think much about these people once they have been punished, once they have been sent to jail or made to pay. In fact, sometimes we stop thinking about them when a case is filed against them or a prosecutor commences a prosecution. Though we do not come ou and say it, we think they deserve what happened to them and therefore no longer need to be thought about, cared about. They have been sent away, exiled, sent to Siberia, sent to a relocation camp for future disposition by the authorities. Or they are about to be sent away.

For the most part, we think of these people as generally evil. And, since they "evil" there is no reason to have much regard for them. We say, "they are not like us." We view them as objects which we can forget.

One function of this exclusion is to protect ourselves from having to acknowledge our own many errors, our own wrongs. We were not punished or excluded. We know our secrets, and hope to be able to get away with what we have done.

If we were to think of those who have become involved in the establishment's powers of punishment or imprisonment in a humane way we would have to think of ourselves as wrongdoers. Our illusions about our innocence and perfection would be put at risk.

Our lack of honesty about ourselves and our humanity keeps us from being human to those our establishment punishes and imprisons.

P.L. Blake

2008-12-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

The Tobacco Litigation produced millions in attorney's fees. But, it also produced billions in programs for states to combat smoking or billions to compensate states for the costs of dealing with the health problems of those who smoked cigarettes.

The primary person pursuing such objectives saw fit to hire a political operative originally from Greenville, Mississippi to assist in the effort. An agreement was reached for his services -- $50 million.

His name is P. L. Blake. It would be interesting to know what, exactly, his role was in the process of the Tobacco Litigation.

Carl Orff and Betrayal

2008-12-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

We learn this week that Carl Orff the composer of the famed Carmina Burana was a man who betrayed a friend. One could say he really did not betray is friend, merely did not come to his aid. The friend, Kurt Huber was a found of the Munich unit of an anti-Nazi resistance group during he war called "The White Rose." Kurt Huber was arrested by the Gestapo. His wife asked Orff to intervene. He refused choosing to protect himself. Huber was later hung by the Gestapo.

After the war, in order to establish himself as a candidate for de-nazification, Orff told a United States intelligence officer, a man named "Jenkins that he had co-founded Die Weisse Rose with his friend, Kurt Huber." Richard Morrison, Carl Orff, the composer who lived a monstrous lie, The Times on Line, December 19, 2008

Joey Langston and John Dean

2008-12-14T17:25:00.000-08:00

From what I read, many are saying what a good guy Joey Langston is. They say he has done a lot of good. They say in his sentencing coming up, the judge should be lenient. Not only because he is a good guy but because he has gone out of his way to help the prosecution in the conviction of those he worked with when he and Steve Balducci tried to bribe Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

I do not know what to make of this. But, it reminds me of my opinions of John Dean and the part he played in Watergate and the part he played bringing those he had worked with to justice. His efforts seemed opportunistic. He seemed to be the same person I had dinner with one night at Egil "Bud" Krogh's house in Chevy Chase. A person I thought of at the time as "just a bit too slick."

While it is good that we have such people concerned for justice following their own injustices. It seems just bit untoward (sleazy) . however, that they seem to step forward with relish in making themselves into "good guys" as they use the opportunity to bring down friends so as to gain easy and light sentences. Seems everything is relative. Seems everything is "for sale" so to speak.

As I recall, Bud Krogh asked to be sentenced before he cooperated with the prosecution. Now that's a person with good sense and good ethics.

Speculation: New Indictments

2008-12-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Some are speculating that new indictments will issue soon from a federal grand jury sitting in northern Mississippi. The speculation has to do with Richard Scruggs and the alleged bribery of Judge "Bobby" Delaughter in a fee case involving a number of players. One thing about this Mississippi situation is that it will come to us with the bark on, so to speak, if there is a situation to come to us.

One suspects lawyer-judge shenanigans go on all the time but in a much more subtle way in other jurisdictions. Indeed, in some jurisdictions it is not necessary to promise anything to the judge. All one has to do is to ensure that the judge understands that friends and others will think highly of him or her if he or she "does the right thing." In Mississippi people still do such things for money, or so it seems. At least, in Mississippi, there is a certain honesty, even
"transparency" as they say.

Elk in a clearing.

2008-12-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of a herd of elk in a clearing in a forest in northeastern Washington. I say not where to protect the herd. I find it hard to understand why anyone would gain pleasure from killing one of these creatures. But, I suppose I find it hard to understand why anyone would gain pleasure from harming any living thing.

The Basic Truth

2008-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

This painting troubles me. It has something to say about the motivations of the people in the Scruggs Matter, all of the people, and at every stage and aspect. From the desire to win, the desire to capture, the desire to escape punishment by helping the prosecutors inflict punishment on others, the desire for fame and professional approval, the desire to be a part of treachery. When one thinks of it, one is hard-pressed to find real proof of the assurance of a single laudable motive at work in the hearts of any one of the players in this sordid drama -- Dick Scruggs, Steve Balducci, Joey Langston, Edward Peters, Bobby DeLaughter, Judge Henry Lackey, Judge Biggers, the whole lot.

We like to think there are good guys and bad guys, but I wonder. I wonder if in the heart of things, in the heart of all of the people who played a part, there is not something pervasive and sad, something corrupt. We will only know if the heart of each is honest and dares to express the subtlety of human motivations. Were he to do so, it would be up to each of us to understand, to express grace and forgiveness if it is in our power to forgive.

More Treachery in Mississippi

2008-11-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

News is coming from Mississippi telling of the efforts of Joey Langston to help the U.S. Attorney in his efforts regarding the Judge Bobby Delaughter influence matter. Seems Langston and Steve Balducci were engaged in some effort to influence Judge Delaughter using his old friend and mentor Edward Peters. Peters apparently got $1 million. Langston and Balducci pled guilty to some relatively minor charges. Now they are helping the U.S. Attorney gain new indictments against Dick Scruggs, the lawyer, Langston and Balducci were working for.

The matter is a real sorry mess. But, the truly frightening thing for me is this: The legal system uses treachery to gain indictments and convictions. What is the treachery here? It is the apparent fact that Langston using his involvement and perhaps instigation of a wrong of judicial influence and bribery to put his friend and client in jail. The common excuse for this is that government has to make bargains with the devil to bring other devils to justice. This is commonly accepted within our system of "justice."

The principles at work are expressed by the aphorisms used -- law is not about justice, it is war and in war there are no principles, you can only get the bad guy by using the same techniques bad guys use, the guy the government is going after is really a "bad guy," and he deserves no fairness, life is tough, get over it, -- and so it goes.

The real principle at work is this -- the end justifies the means.

So where do we go when this principle reaches into every part of our civilization, our culture. Our culture becomes one based only on the principle of expediency as determined by those in power from time to time.

Do we have to become evil in order to control evil?

Lerach -- Lessons for those in Prison

2008-09-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

William Lerach is serving time at Lompoc near Santa Barbara for doing bad things as a lawyer.

Now he is in more trouble and may have to serve harder time for his wrongdoing. Seems he suggested to a guard who likes sports that the guard could use his season tickets to the games of some professional sports team. Here is a story about Mr. Lerach's current predicament.

You are not supposed to say such things, suggest you might do such things. It makes sense. for sure.

There is a lesson to be learned for those under the microscope of others: Do not presume anyone on the prison staff is or should be your friend. Withdraw into yourself. Keep your distance. Do no indulge in your motivations of good will. Certainly, do not indulge in your motivations of ill will. Detach yourself. Pursue more meaningful things. Become an observer, cease to be a participant. Try to understand. Have compassion which does not attach. Let your compassion float over to yourself and try to understand something of yourself that you never had time to attempt to understand. Give yourself a break. Let yourself alone for a while.

2008-07-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

This morning I sent a comment to Folo asking Observer to expand on a statement he made. So far no response from Observer or anyone else for that matter. Maybe the thread has been closed, maybe people just got bored with the questions I was raising. Here is what I said and asked:

Observer - In the past you said “In the post-Paul Minor world, Judge Lackey apparently was afraid someone was trying to set him (i.e., Judge Lackey) up. The people that were hunting for Dickie Scruggs was the FBI. Judge Lackey found himself in an awful position.”

Do you think he (Judge Lackey) may have thought someone was working with Tim Balducci to set him up?

Do you think he knew anything about, or had heard rumors about, the Wilson Case in Judge DeLaughter’s court?

Do you think he thought there was surveillance of him independent of Balducci?
I think the judge even said somewhere he was concerned that someone might be looking at him back in March of 2007.

The entry and the thread can be found here at Folo.

Judge Lackey: Questions, Something Does Not Ring True

2008-07-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

I am still confused and suspicious of how the FBI got to Dick Scruggs. The agent for the FBI was a Mississippi Circuit Judge, Henry Lackey.

Judge Lackey was assigned the Jones v. Scruggs case. The day of the assignment he entered an ex parte order sealing the case file. Common law makes case records public records. He signed the order because the lawyer for Jones, a man named Tollison asked to sign the order.

Next, a Tim Balducci calls Judge Lackey. He contends the case should be sent to arbitration. Balducci is a friend of Dick Scruggs.

Here is where it gets interesting. On more than one occasion on the Folo Blog commentators have said that Judge Lackey thought he his actions might be under surveillance. Supposedly, he waited about two weeks before he said he went to the United States Attorney who then put him in contact with the FBI.

One commentor said that Judge Lackey became physically ill after his meeting with Mr. Balducci.

What I am struggling with is why Judge Lackey would become physically ill or, if not physically ill, emotionally distraught. I wonder? Did Judge Lackey really think that he might be under surveillance? Why would he have thought that? Was he aware of what was happening or possibly happening regarding Judge DeLaughter in the Wilson case?

Why would the judge think that he might be under surveillance? Did the judge have a reason to think his conduct, in the past, and as a judge might have caused someone to become suspicious of him?

From the judge's testimony and public statements it does not seem that he was troubled very much by what Tim Balducci had asked him to do, if he had really ask him anything. He did not seem to be the type of guy who would be come physically ill because a lawyer may have earwigged him.

That he became ill because Balducci approached him is, well, it its beyond reason.

So, why did Judge Lackey become ill? Why did he think the FBI may have been surveiling him? Was it because he was talking to Balducci and he thought the FBI may have been surveiling Balducci? But if that was the case why did he wait so long to go to the US Attorney. Was it because he had been the situation before? Was talking to judges "out of school" a common practice everywhere, in Calhoun County? Did the judge know something about the Peters, Langston, Balducci, Judge DeLaughter situation in the Wilson case?

Does the out of court politics of law in Mississippi have a much deeper significance that anyone is willing to admit to?

Something is not quite right. And, it also seems of interest that Judge Lackey is being lauded for his efforts and that the Mississippi Bar association is giving him awards. Why is all this happening so fast?

Much more is to be unravelled.

A Justice for American Judges and Lawyers Today

2008-07-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

The other day, I listened to one of our Supreme Court justices, Anton Scalia, talk about a book --Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges -- he had written with another, a writer employed to write by one of the larger law book publishers, a "household name" in the legal profession. There was not much to listen too.

The judge was using the heights of his position to team up with a name one sees on significant publications of the law book publisher to tell lawyers how to make the lawyer's case to judges. And, to make your case, how to dress, how to write a brief, how to make oral argument, how to, how to, etc.

Lawyers with some spare change have many such books on their bookshelves (if they really have bookshelves outside of the bookshelves of their law firms). Such books not about the law, the history of law, the purposes of law, the major concerns of law over time. No, such books are books about how to "trick the law."

What I mean by "trick the law" is how to control the system of law and judges so that it works in one’s favor, so that it is possible for a lawyer to win. Tricking the law is about how a lawyer would go about getting his or her success in the law. Tricking the law books are all about how to conform so one can win – gain material success and favorable public opinion in the profession of the law.

Justice Scalia, a man lionized by many within and without the profession of the law, went on to say lawyers are merely "facilitators", that they do not contribute anything real or substantial to the process of life. They just help things along. I think I remember that as the essence of what the justice said, but I am also sure he would say I am simplifying it too much though.

I had never really thought about lawyers in this way before -- as facilitators. Or, if I had, I denied the truth of the characterization. The lawyer of my imagination has always been a person who, acting with courage and conviction and intelligence as best God gave it to him, would do more than just facilitate, he would lead and he would try to help the law evolve. I have naively assumed that a good lawyer would use his effort to help the filial sense of being evolve into finer thing.

I have had lofty thoughts about the law and lawyers and still do. But the justice’s remarks lead me to think I am out of step with the times.

Maybe a lawyer is just that, a facilitator. That a lawyer should be just that, and should aspire to be only that – a facilitator helping himself and his client trick the law for success and profit.

Does not seem much to aspire to.

Maybe we will be saved from this pecuniary view of the legal profession and the judiciary by a book, after the fashion of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. A Babbitt book about a lawyer rather than a realtor (trademark).

Earwigging for Some but Not Others in Federal Courts?

2008-07-04T15:56:00.000-07:00

In Richard Sobol’s book Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy , a rather momentous example of earwigging of a federal district court judge is described.

In the Preface to the book, Mr. Sobol describes how A. H. Robins Company, the manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield, sought to consolidate the Dalkon Shield Litigation in the federal court in Richmond, Virginia before District Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr., a local law school graduate of the University of Richmond, and an "enthusiastic booster of both the city and the university."

The efforts to consolidate had been opposed. Robins "finally achieved the consolidation of the Dalkon Shield litigation in Richmond before Judge Merhige by filing for bankruptcy." Mr. Sobol reported Judge Merhige "is a neighbor of E. Claiborne Robins, Sr., who is a celebrated figure in Richmond. Three weeks before the bankruptcy filing, Merhige met in his home with Robins, Sr., and E. Claiborne Robins, Jr., the president of A.H. Robins, to discuss the company’s plans with respect to bankruptcy."

The rest is history. The liabilities of the company and its officers, directors, attorneys and insurer were transferred "to a trust with limited funding, and to allow the Robin’s shareholders to be paid the value of the company in excess of the fund before it could be determined whether the individual entitlements of the women injured by the Dalkon Shield exceeded the amount of the fund, or indeed, the total value of the company."

Thus, it might be contended there there are differing standards regarding earwigging and its progeny from case to case in federal court.

One would have had a different view, maybe a more enlightened view, of the Scruggs sentencings had Judge Biggers made some mention of the A. H. Robins - Merhige earwigging. I wonder if he would have found a difference between it and the initial earwigging of Judge Lackey by Timothy Balducci to get the Jones case sent to arbitration?

Will Mississippi Change the Social Ethic of Its Legal Culture?

2008-07-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

The leaders of the social ethic of the Mississippi legal culture are handing out accolades these days. For instance an award was given recently to the Circuit Court judge who became an agent of the federal government who entrapped people in a judicial bribe which he had proposed.

The United States District Court judge who handed down punishments -- prison and fines -- to the people who got caught in the sting is being congratulated for his hard bitten personality and the severity of the punishments given the limitations the judge was under due to plea bargains. He is also being congratulated for speaking for himself and not necessarily for the court.

So what do we have from all this? We have heroes and villains. The good guys are congratulated, bad guys are in jail. The good guys are really good, and the bad guys are really bad.

Case closed, the Social Ethic of the Legal Culture of Mississippi has been cleansed. Now everything can proceed as usual. I would not bet on this. Things are more complicated than they seem. What we have witnessed in the Scruggs Matter is only an emanation of a social ethic of the legal culture of Mississippi.

Scruggs Matter and the Oedipus Complex

2008-07-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

The Scruggs Matter may provide food for understanding and speculation about the Oedipus Complex.

The Oedipus Complex has to do with the love - hate relationship of the child to the father or father figure. Freud, as I recall, speculated that the boy child wanted to replace the father in the affections of the mother. Maybe, but the Oedipus Complex in my mind has to do with relations of any person who seems to have an unusual affection for and veneration of persons in positions of power or who give the impression of power.

Of interest, of course, is the amount of respect almost awe some of the main players in the Scruggs Matter dialogue seem to have for "judges", lawyer fathers, and mentors. And, at the same time, seem to have, or at least show, great sentimental concern for animals in distress and fathers long gone. That is to say on the one hand some of the players can be downright mean and on the other downright nice to small critters in distress. I can understand the latter but do not understand how it can co-exist with the former. But then, in America one encounters this on a daily basis, especially in hunting country. (Reminds me of the young man I met while staying at the warden's house at the Minnesota Penitentiary (what a nice name for the place) in St. Cloud. He was in for "statutory rape" he said. On one of his arms he had a tattoo his buddies had done for him using a needle, thread and India ink. It said, "Mother.")

Maybe more on this topic and my approach to the Oedipus Complex at a later time. I will have to see if it captures my interest more than in a passing way. Right now thinking about it is better than listening to a book while I go about my business. What I seem to be seeing in the matter is enigmatic. It has been impressing me for the last four hours.

Judge Biggers: A View Up To the bench.

2008-07-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

Judge Biggers does not seem to comport himself while acting from the bench with any sort of true detachment, objectivity, impartiality, understanding or compassion.

He seems to have taken the Scruggs matter personally. He seems intent on doing harm rather than doing justice.

Reading the transcript of the Dick Scruggs sentencing hearing one gets the impression Judge Biggers seems to think Scruggs offended him (and his friend Judge Lackey?) and for such offense of Judge Biggers he should be punished.

Federal judges should speak for the court, not themselves. Adherence to the fact that a federal judge is speaking for the court would have, should have, a moderating influence on the judge who happens to be on that particular bench at that particular time. More importantly the public impression and understanding of the court then is directed to the court itself, not some person who was fortunate enough to be appointed to the court by reason of the political process.

One senses there is a great deal more to the story of Dick Scruggs and the trouble he finds himself in. It looks as though the trouble and concern for the system of justice may extend deeper into the judiciary and legal system in Mississippi and indeed America.

Why not tell the whole story?

2008-07-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

It is interesting and perhaps telling that the bribe was proposed by a Mississippi judge. A judge who was earwigged by a close friend. A judge who then took his friend into his confidence and then, when the friend was hitting rock bottom financially and emotionally, proposed that his friend pay him a bribe - $40,000. Obliging, the friend, and then caught accepting the judge's proposed bribe of himself, proceeded to entrap his friends into the bribe in order to lighten the load he and his mentor judge had put on his life. There is much more to this sad tale than the shortcomings of Richard Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom and Zachary Scruggs.

The Sentencing

2008-06-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

Richard Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom were sentenced last week.

The Souls of People.

2008-05-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

Dickie Scruggs, his son and law partner are to be sentenced on July 2, 2008. Some Internet commenter's take pleasure in this, in the fall of a man. In their pleasure there is obvious animosity toward the man and satisfaction in his fall. Seems such expressions tell more about the critics than it does about Mr. Scruggs. The interest is prurient. It is like the interest some people express toward political figures. It is truly irrelevant in the wider scheme of things. If they can get others to share in the criticism of the people who are the objects of their criticisms they are able to themselves from their own capabilities. That is to say, the connection between their instincts and the object, and the approval of others in the connection, gives them an inner sense that they are not as deficient as they think they are in their own souls. The end result? -- their narcissitic satisfaction, sinister as it is, pleasure.

Robert Coughlin: Where's the Commentary?

2008-04-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

Robert Coughlin has pled guilty. Justice Department, friend of Jack Abramoff. Involved in keeping the Abramoff prosecution in some check. Involved with Paul Minor prosecution. Where is the commentary?

Corruption Everywhere

2008-04-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

In a recent interview published in the Jackson Free Press, Bill Minor, the father of Paul Minor said this:

It is clear from recent events that the U.S. Department of Justice was
corrupt. Just yesterday, the former deputy director of the Public Integrity
Section of the Department of Justice, Robert Coughlin who prosecuted Paul, was
accused of taking bribes to go easy on an investigation of the notorious Jack
Abramoff, the prominent Republican lobbyist who is now in jail for paying off
several members of the US Congress.

Yesterday, Mr. Coughlin, pleaded guilty. See this story Guilty Plea in Abramoff-Linked Case
Former Justice Department Official Admits Conflict of Interest in Lobbyist Case. For some reason I think the quick plea to "conflict of interest" probably will hide a whole host of wrongdoing. Wrongdoing reaching well into Mississippi and elsewhere. Let's see, what were the law firms Jack Abramoff was associated with. And, let us see, how did Abramoff move money -- through the accounts of what firm(s)?

Monsters and Motivations: The Saga Begins to Unfold in Greater Depth

2008-04-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Some of Judge Henry Lackey's testimony or abridgements or paraphrases of the testimony can be found at Folo (I did not know the kind of monster we were dealing with . . .). Here is an interesting chunk. Cal Mayo is doing the questioning (but not very well it should be added, but maybe not all the questions and answers were reported), he is the attorney for Dick Scruggs.

Q: In May, Balducci had made no quid pro quo?

[A.] He was lying to me and I was lying to him, was what was happening.

[Q.] Did you have any discussions about recusal with FBI or US Attorneys office about your recusal before you did it?

[A.] Sent letter recusing myself, my decision. Did not feel I was getting anywhere, was frustrated with the situation. I reported it to the FBI agent.

[A.] After talking to the FBI agent and after realizing what a monster we were dealing with and the lives he had probably destroyed and the young lawyers and their families he had destroyed, I got back in it.

[A.] The monster was Dickie Scruggs.

Q. Who told you he had destroyed those lives.

A. I did not realize what a monster we were dealing with fully until now. I realize what he has done to destroy our profession, more than anything in my lifetime. Tim Balducci had told me Scruggs knew.

A. Did not discuss the lives Scruggs had destroyed at that time.

It seems clear Judge Lackey had an agenda of his own in this matter. That it was an agenda which preceded his contact with the US Attorney. Before he went to the "FBI agent" (did that come after he had talked with the US Attorney?) he said, "[d]id not feel I was getting anywhere, was frustrated with the situation."
What was the situation? It was, Lackey said, in "May, Balducci had made no quid pro quo?“He was lying to me and I was lying to him, was what was happening.” That is, Lackey had formed and intent to get something out of Balducci which would give him some power over Balducci. But it was not forth-coming, he was frustrated.

Lackey seems to have had the opinion that Dick Scruggs was a "monster" and had "destroyed lives" and "destroyed" "young lawyers and their families." He was going after him, Dick Scruggs, and he was going to use his friend Balducci to get to him. To get to the monster who had destroyed lives and destroyed young lawyers and their families.

Lackey had an agenda, a purpose, in this. Balducci's contact with him in March gave him a pretext to pursue that purpose and a pretext to destroy his friend Balducci in the process (war is justified by the presumption that the object of war is evil). One cannot be sure from what one knows of the Lackey testimony but it would seem there is more than a hint of the Judge's relish in going after Dick Scruggs -- the words, monster, destroy lives, destroy young lawyers and their families indicate more than objective interest.

"So what," you might say.

Let me explain myself. That Lackey may have had a personal agenda in this, a mission of his own, is certainly of interest regarding the entrapment issue, which as you know is of importance to me. But more interesting and in line with what I said in my last post, Lackey's motivations seem to make for a more interesting story, seem to express more depth about the "set piece" of the Scruggs Matter. There is greater depth to the history.

Just as Dick Scruggs creatively with friends and compatriots pursued the asbestos cases (I had an early part in the defense of some of the non-Scruggs, non-Motley, asbestos cases in Eastern Washington but got out of them and handed them off to one of my partners), just as Dick Scruggs with Attorney General Moore and various attorneys general (AG Christine Gregoire of Washington was one of the major players) pursued big tobacco, just has Dick Scruggs "got his rocks off," pursued his career, pursued success, pursued his desire to advance himself, pursued justice, so Judge Lackey creatively sought an object which would benefit him, satisfy his urging: to wit, the destruction of Dick Scruggs.

I think Lackey saw the destruction of Dick Scruggs as a worthy goal and one which would advance his reputation. Each of Scruggs and Lackey took their energies, their libido, their creativity and pursued objects the control or conquest of which would have payoff or gain to them.

And, just as Dick Scruggs seemed to push to the outside of the envelop doing things others more ethical would not have done, Judge Lackey has seemed to push the outside of the envelop to gain his objective, that is the cajoling of his emotionally manic and morally weak friend, Tim Balducci, into a crime of bribery proposed by the Judge himself which would very rapidly trap Dick Scruggs and bring his downfall.

In the lives of these two players, Dick Scruggs and Henry Lackey, there is much interesting material as to motivation and instinct. This makes the story of the Scruggs Matter much more interesting and indeed, much more instructive to those who might be interested in more than the usual comic book theme of war between good guys and bad guys. The matter is not that simple, nor that inconsequential.

The Real Story About the Scruggs Matter

2008-04-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

The real story about the Scruggs Matter is hidden from us. We can only speculate. We can, however, keep our speculation in check if we understand history and a bit of human nature.

What the heck am I talking about? The history of what I might refer to or think of as a "set piece of human events" (e.g. the Scruggs Matter) is the history of causes of the actions and causes of reactions. The causes of the actions and reactions have a source in human nature, in the particular the human beings playing out their parts in piece of history -- people who are playing out the events of the "set piece." These are the people who have some sort of part to play of the events which unfold.

The set piece is a sort of representation of the wills of the participants and a representation of will in itself -- it is as if there is some sort of flowering of actions and reactions and more actions and reactions until what is in the making is made and then comes to a rest, at least for the time being.

The part which is hidden from us are the particular "causes" of the actions and reactions. These causes are to be found in human nature. But, the human nature we must speak of is that of the particular human nature of each of the participants, known and unknown, in the course of the actions and reactions. And, it is the will of human nature in and of itself.

Whatever we do about and within this set piece and that which we observe is, in truth speculation, about human nature and the particular human natures of the participants.

We will never know the real truth, the full and real truth of the Scruggs Matter.

One thing for sure, as far as I am concerned is that the matter is far more interesting than it appears. Another thing for sure, the characters in the drama are not as guilty nor as innocent as those of us who comment upon the matter would supposedly cause us to believe.

The Scruggs Matter is life in the raw. It is also life which has a certain beauty to it when one relieves himself from the absurd notion he or she can pass judgment on any person in the play.

The Manners and Morals of Gulf Coast Lawyers and Judges

2008-04-17T05:27:00.000-07:00

The recent events in Jones v. Scruggs (Katrina Group remainder) are most interesting. Judicial actions have taken place in Jones and other civil cases in the area involving Dick Scruggs which foretell or should foretell all sorts of interesting developments. I sure hope someone with a clever mind and a mind for digging beneath the pleasant surface of things is working on the matter -- with the intent of writing a true history of it or at least using it and speculations about it as the backdrop of a bit of fiction.

One observation -- the entire house of cards (the Katrina / State Farm litigation and the professional success of Dick Scruggs) is falling or has fallen as a result of the bribery entrapment of Dick Scruggs by Judge Henry Lackey, a Mississippi Circuit Court judge. That is to say, the main character in the story will be Judge Lackey.

Judge Lackey seems to be the local hero of the moment. He's riding real high right now and he knows it. His self-satisfaction was well apparent in his testimony the other day in the Jones case before Mississippi Circuit Judge Coleman.

I speculate there is a lot more to the story of Judge Lackey -- a whole lot more. I doubt he was the innocent he says he was in the bribery entrapment. He "professes too much." And much of what he says is simply unbelievable (to a person who has spent the last 38 years in the legal profession many of those years being years trying cases to judges (not to juries)).

The judge would like us to believe he was deeply troubled by his meeting with Tim Balducci in March, 2007. What he would have us believe does not ring true. I wonder whether he jumped on the opportunity presented by the stupidities and emotional weaknesses of his friend to pursue an agenda of his own, as some sort of crime fighter to bring down "the monster." He says he did not realize that Dick Scruggs was a monster until after he got involved. In his testimony the other day he threw that into the mix after catching himself saying he suspected Dick Scruggs was a monster he wanted to get at the time of his first meeting or shortly thereafter, before he went to the US Attorney.

I wonder did he become the agent for the government in the entrapment because the government wanted him to become the agent or did he become a government agent because he wanted to be a government agent for purposes of his own. And, if so, were those purposes really his purposes or was he pursuing the purposes of others, of a group, of some sort of gestalt which had become ascendant in a certain aspect of the legal/judicial community? Judges do not act on their own, they are consummate conformists. What wants to imagine as leadership is most often judicial expression of conformity.

There are a good number of people in Mississippi who would like to believe Judge Lackey is a great guy, a great leader. They, and the judge profess too much. I am suspicious. I wonder whether I am the only one.

Back to what I hope -- that someone with time on his or her hands and some investigatory and writing skills will tell the truth about the situation and will flesh out these strange and unusual characters who have popped up and who are popping up as the days progress in this bit of history of the manners and morals of the Gulf Coast legal/judicial system.

2008-03-31T16:06:00.000-07:00

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless
characters of judges, advocates and jurors.
Ambrose Bierce

Public Opinion vs. The Truth About the Scruggs Matter

2008-03-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Columnist Carl Horowitz published an opinion piece on March 29, entitled "Dickie Scruggs: A Legal Career Up In Smoke." I found it on Townhall.com, a website of so-called "Conservative" columnists and others.

Referring to the Jones v. Scruggs case Mr. Horowitz says this:

Dickie Scruggs wasn't about to yield. In March 2007 he and four persons -- all future defendants -- paid Judge Henry Lackey a visit to make him an offer:
Rule in our favor and we'll make you richer. Lackey, not wanting to bring legal
troubles upon himself, quickly reported the incident to the FBI. That in turn
led to an undercover sting operation. Timothy Balducci, a New Albany, Miss. lawyer, along with former Mississippi State Auditor Steven Patterson, decided to cop a plea and work with the feds. During September 27-November 1, 2007, Balducci made three cash payments to Judge Lackey totaling $50,000. "We paid for this ruling; let's be sure it says what we want it to say," Balducci told Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom.

This looks a bit like the story, but it is not. Much of it is untrue. It is libelous. Libelous but none one of the "four persons" would make any headway bringing suit. See New York Times v. Sullivan.

So the story of Scruggs Matter twisted as Carl Horowitz has twisted it will be the Public Opinion about the Scruggs Matter and the character of Dick Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom and Zach Scruggs.

The Real Truth about the Scruggs Matter and these individuals will be lost to history.

Out of respect for the truth, let us look at the statement, parse it, and see how the truth has been sullied.

Horowitz starts out saying Scruggs was not "about to yield" in the Jones v. Scruggs case.

"Yield" to what? There was (and is) a difference of opinion as to the relationship between the plainfiffs and defendants in Jones. Yield to what, the plaintiffs' claims? Yield to the pressue of the case, one which had been sealed at the ex parte request of the attorney for the Jones plaintiff to the judge assigned to the case, Judge Henry Lackey?

Mr. Horowitz goes on:

In March 2007 he and four persons -- all future defendants -- paid Judge Henry Lackey a visit to make him an offer: Rule in our favor and we'll make you richer.

Tim Balducci was a longtime friend of Judge Henry Lackey. He met with Judge Lackey to "earwig" him about the Jones Case. Lackey had already earwigged with Grady
Tollison, the attorney for the plaintiffs in the case and consented to sign and did sign an order sealing the file in the case. Defendants were not made aware of the "motion" to seal the file. Nor were they made aware that Tollison had earwigged Judge Lackey.

Tim Balducci was the only person to meet with his friend Judge Lackey. Dick Scruggs and "four persons" did not "pay" a visit to Judge Lackey. (Interesting but not so clever use of the verb "paid" by Mr. Horowitz.)

Balducci did not ask Lackey to rule in favor of defendants in the case. The case could only go to arbitration. That was the agreement between the parties. Balducci did not seek a favorable ruling in the case, he only pointed out the fact of the case, that it should be in a different forum, the forum of an arbitration.

Horowitz says: "Lackey, not wanting to bring legal troubles upon himself, quickly reported the incident to the FBI. That in turn led to an undercover sting operation."

Nothing happened. Two weeks later, Lackey decided to go to the United States Attorney. He did not act "quickly" that is for certain.

This move by Judge Lackey is interesting. Why did he wait? Did he think he was being watched? Seems there something in a newspaper article in which it was said that Lackey may have been afraid he might be "investigated."

Lackey was then and still is a member of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. He has ruled against judges who have had ex parte contact. Yet he had an ex parte contact with the attorney for the plaintiff in the Jones Case. Seems there is ex parte contact and then there is some other wrongful ex parte contact. What Balducci did in talking to Lackey, his long time friend and mentor was to have contact which was not thought to be wrongful. It was just Mississippi Earwigging.

One also must wonder whether the United States Government, the Office of the United States Attorney, was known by Lackey to be investigating persons in Mississippi which may have been targeted for possible prosecution if possible for such wrongdoing as "honest services" wire fraud.

Judge Lackey may have been a key in the "if possible prosecution" desires of the federal government, the US Attorney's Office.

In April 2007 Lackey, as a judge, agreed to become a "government agent." He agreed engage in conduct which would trap Balducci in an act of wrongdoing which would put him in jail.

But he wanted more and the record clearly shows this, he wanted to use his friend Balducci to bring down Dick Scruggs . He agreed to be a government agent to engage in an act of treachery to destroy his friend and his friend's friend.

Horowitz goes on to say:

Timothy Balducci, a New Albany, Miss. lawyer, along with former Mississippi State Auditor Steven Patterson, decided to cop a plea and work with the feds. During September 27- November 1, 2007, Balducci made three cash payments to Judge Lackey totaling $50,000. "We paid for this ruling; let's be sure it says what we want
it to say," Balducci told Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom.

Judge Lackey, now government agent and wearing a wire and having his phones wired, was having no success in his newly discovered role as federal government crime fighter. Nothing was forthcoming from Balducci which he might use to succeed in getting Scruggs under some federal government prosecution.

Things changed in August. Lackey became aware that his friend Balducci was in trouble, real trouble and was looking for some success.

Balducci had embarked on the formation of a new law firm. It was with Steve Patterson. Patterson was not a lawyer. They had offices in Mississippi and Washington, D.C. They had already enlisted a former United States Magistrate and a Mississippi circuit judge to appear on the their letterhead. There were others. But the firm was broke. In addition, members of the Mississippi legal fraternity were moving in on the question of whether the Balducci Patterson firm was not a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct because Patterson was not a lawyer.
Balducci put a good front but he was clearly in trouble, maybe even having a nervous breakdown. He was acting as if he had become manic.

Lackey certainly must have sensed this. It was then that he told his friend Balducci that he, Lackey, was in trouble and needed money. Lackey offered to help Balducci if Balducci would help him. Lackey said he needed $40,000. Lackey said he needed it from Scruggs. He said he would order the Jones Case to arbitration.

Lackey had a wire on his body when he talked with Balducci about his desire for money and Balducci's acquiescence. Balducci was caught. He was in deep trouble. He began to talk to the United States Government, the people who were working with Judge Lackey.

Facing many years in prison, he agreed to become a government agent to extend the Lackey "bribe" to Dick Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom and Zach Scruggs, Dick Scruggs 33 year old son.

He succeeded, and with Defendants Sruggs and Backstrom on tape showing various levels of participation or knowledge about what Balducci was supposedly working out with Judge Lackey (the "bribe" was not a bribe at all at this time because Judge Lackey was not really offerng a bribe), the government secured indictments from the grand jury against Dick Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom, Zach Scruggs, Tim Balducci and Steve Patterson.

(It is interesting to note that the grand jury was sitting and supposedly ready to consider such information about Scruggs and others.)

Treachery: A Poignant Truth of the Scruggs Matter?

2008-03-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the Scruggs Matter is the treachery of Judge Henry Lackey.

It may well be to some that the end justifies the means but the truth is Judge Lackey deceived his friend Tim Balducci and brought him down, bringing him to utter ruin as a lawyer. As if this was not enough, he forced his friend into a position where he then had to act to betray his friend, Dick Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom and Zach Scruggs.

These treacheries are not spoken of in the current discussion of the Scruggs Matter.

Perhaps it is because we are so full of hatred and ill-feeling and so many are irrationally delighting in the destruction of "wrongdoers" we do not recognize a telling and terribly distressful truth about what has happened. Judge Lackey and the United States Attorney in the Northern District of Mississippi are not heroes in this matter. They have acted with treachery. This conduct is permitted by our laws. But, I wonder is it permitted by higher laws?

I think not. The end does not justify the means. Not only was the entrapment in this case by Judge Lackey wrongful and a true a good defense for each of the Srcuggs Defendants, the entrapment was wrong as a matter of basic morality between human beings.

All of the wrong by the Scruggs defendants is not as wrong as the conduct of Judge Lackey in using his friend's trust to bring him to ruin and in forcing his friend to bring his friends to ruin.

Truth: The first casualty of war.

2008-03-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

"In war, truth is the first casualty." Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC).

An essential "truth" of the Scruggs Matter has to do with whether Mississippi Circuit Judge Henry Lackey's sought after payment from Tim Balducci was "a business transaction or series of transactions of both Layfayette County [Mississippi] and the Administrative Office of the Courts [of Mississippi]." See, e.g. Court Transcript of Court's Acceptance of Sidney Backstrom Plea.

This condition was a requirement of the crime. The crime was bribery or conspiracy to bribe a state judge. It was a federal crime. The federal government could not impose the crime unless there was a nexus of federal funds going to the state agencies supposedly involved in the crime. Without the nexus, the federal government would have no constitutional basis for jurisdiction to impose its laws.

Thus, it had to be established that there was federal money going to the local government, an agency of the state, in this case Lafayette County and the Administrative Office of the Courts.

To round out the jurisdiction requirement it also had to be shown that an agent of these entities had engaged in a transaction or transactions for them which was a violation of the law, bribery.

So here is where truth becomes a casualty.

Judge Lackey sought to be paid a bribe. He initiated the bribe. Tim Balducci did not seek to bribe Judge Lackey. Judge Lackey was able to get Timothy Balducci to go along with the payment of money the Judge sought.

Was the transaction a county or court transaction? The transaction could not have been with the county or the court.

1. Judge Lackey was the one who sought the payment of money from Balducci.

2. The money sought was not going to the county or the court.

3. Judge Lackey did not have authority under law to seek the money. A bribe was outside the scope of his employment. It was in violation of his duties as judge. It was in violation of his duties as lawyer. It was in violation of his authority under the constitution of the state of Mississippi.

There is no basis for saying that Judge Lackey's actions, the payment of money to him, involved "a business transaction or series of transactions of both [or either] Layfayette County and [or] the Administrative Office of the Courts."

Saying they were is a pure fiction, a fiction necessary to make the case against Dick Scruggs, Sidney Backstrom and Zach Scruggs -- a fiction necessary for the government to win the war.

The Climate of Opinion of Blogs and Comments

2008-03-26T06:05:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a climate of opinion which animates the comments one reads made in response to a statement of fact or opinion in this or that blog regarding the Scruggs Matter. The climate includes a whole lot of animus toward Dick Scruggs and Zach Scruggs. Not much is said about Sidney Backstrom. Tim Balducci is mentioned from time to time but he seems a bit off the general object of attention, at least for the time-being. The climate of opinion about the Scruggs is decidedly negative and mean-spirited.

It includes an obvious glee in their fall and much enthusiastic speculation as to what is to befall Dick Scruggs or Zach Scruggs in the future when it is time for them to pay, at the time of sentencing. There is much optimistic speculation of further trouble for Dick Scruggs.

The climate of opinion has another interesting aspect. The people who comment seem part of a community of like-minded people. Like-minded in animosity toward Dick Scruggs.

Also, the commenters make it a point to share the view of the author of the piece the commenters comment about. There is a sort of hero worship of the author. It is as if the commenter must tell how much he likes what David, Peter, Lotus, or other person, a newspaper reporter, is saying and how well he or she thinks of the person -- the one who brings the tidbit which satiates the emotions of the worshipper.

In one his journal entries Leo Tolstoy said this:

To love means to desire that which the beloved object desires. The objects of love desire opposing things, and therefore, we can only love that which desires one and the same thing. But that which desires one and the same thing is God.

December, 1895, Wikisource.

There is a love of sorts among the author and the commenters, a connection. A kindred spirit. The climate of opinion is an expression of the love of that connection. There is a solidarity. In this solidarity there is a sense the commenters have found their god. That is to say, one can feel right, strong, as having place, because there are others who share in certain objects of desire. In this case the desires are of mean-spiritedness toward Dick Scruggs and pleasure in his downfall.

Imagination: Pascal's Pensees 82

2008-03-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Pascal says this about imagination and truth:

82 Imagination. —It is that deceitful part in man, that mistress of error and falsity, the more deceptive that she is not always so; for she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible rule of falsehood. But being most generally false, she gives no sign of her nature, impressing the same character on the true and the false.

I do not speak of fools, I speak of the wisest men; and it is among them that the imagination has the great gift of persuasion. Reason protests in vain; it cannot set a true value on things.

This arrogant power, the enemy of reason, who likes to rule and dominate it, has established in man a second nature to show how all-powerful she is. She makes men happy and sad, healthy and sick, rich and poor; she compels reason to believe, doubt, and deny; she blunts the senses, or quickens them; she has her fools and sages; and nothing vexes us more than to see that she fills her devotees with a satisfaction far more full and entire than does reason. Those who have a lively imagination are a great deal more pleased with themselves than the wise can reasonably be. They look down upon men with haughtiness; they argue with boldness and confidence, others with fear and diffidence; and this gaiety of countenance often gives them the advantage in the opinion of the hearers, such favour have the imaginary wise in the eyes of judges of like nature. Imagination cannot make fools wise; but she can make them happy, to the envy of reason which can only make its friends miserable; the one covers them with glory, the other with shame.

What but this faculty of imagination dispenses reputation, awards respect and veneration to persons, works, laws, and the great? How insufficient are all the riches of the earth without her consent!

Would you not say that this magistrate, whose venerable age commands the respect of a whole people, is governed by pure and lofty reason, and that he judges causes according to their true nature without considering those mere trifles which only affect the imagination of the weak? See him go to sermon, full of devout zeal, strengthening his reason with the ardour of his love. He is ready to listen with exemplary respect. Let the preacher appear, and let nature have given him a hoarse voice or a comical cast of countenance, or let his barber have given him a bad shave, or let by chance his dress be more dirtied than usual, then however great the truths he announces. I wager our senator loses his gravity.

If the greatest philosopher in the world find himself upon a plank wider than actually necessary, but hanging over a precipice, his imagination will prevail, though his reason convince him of his safety. Many cannot bear the thought without a cold sweat. I will not state all its effects.

See Pascal's Pensees at wikisource.

The Way It Is

2008-03-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

On NPR this morning I heard a fluff piece at the end of thank you to Bill and Melinda Gates for their support of something or other. The piece went something like the Gates' support each person's rught to advance himself.

How nice I thought. How darn right nice. But then I remembered. Bill Gates has done just about everything he could to capture market share of an operating system, an office suite, an internet front end, email client and so on. He has driven hundreds of companies out of the market with his success. It has been claimed over and over he has not violated anti-trust laws and copyrights and so on.

Each person has a right to advance himself but watch there are some of us who want more, want what you want, want as much as we can get. We are the juggernaut of competition. We will eat you up.

So what does one make of this? As a culture, we have high tolerance, even reverence for the guy who can give away lots of money even if it was rather ruthlessly accumulated.

We like such people so much we will even build football stadia at public expense for their privately owned professional football teams. Brower v. State, 137 Wn.2d 44 (1998).

Seems us baboozie would sell our souls for a pit of spectacle, power and rich guy worship.

An Analogy

2008-03-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

An analogy for those who disagree with my statement of personal opinion:Every now and then I make a mistake while driving which upsets another driver and justifiably so. I usually realize my mistake and apologize for it, one way or another, by a signal of some kind to the driver I have wronged. Most wronged drivers will acknowledge both my wrongdoing and my apology. A small few will simply drive by and raise their fist and shake it or their hand with the middle finger prominently displayed. I think that small few wears real heavy on the spirit of community.

Judge Biggers

2008-03-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today Judge Biggers received a guilty plea from Zach Scruggs for "misprision of a felony."

After a statement by Mr. Scruggs in which he apologized and expressed his genuine remorse, Judge Biggers replied:

The legal profession you say you love so much, you will not be a part of for
the rest of your life.

This statement was, simply put, unnecessary and mean-spirited.

Mississippi Floods and the Ogallala Aquifer

2008-03-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Mississippi Drainage Basin is full of water, so full it is at flood stage in hundreds of square miles of area. The floods will cause much damage. Perhaps use can be made of these waters and perhaps some of the flood surge could be abated if --

If there was an extensive system of large pumps and large pipe systems for the time being within westward directed railroad right-of-ways to move vast quantities of flood waters to the west. Where in the west? To the thousands of wells which been drilled into the Ogallala Aquifer.

One of the major problems of the plains states is the need to recharge the Ogallala Aquifer. This would recharge the aquifer, take some of the flood surge burden off the Mississippi System, and make water available for continued circle farming and urban areas in the High Plains.

Flood Warnings

2008-03-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

There are flood warnings for the entire length of the Mississippi River making up the western boundary of Mississippi. National Weather Service.

What does this have to do with the Scruggs Matter. I am not sure, but I think the flooding in Mississippi, and the hurricanes, have something to do with making the character of the people.

Speaking of floods in Mississippi read or listen to Rising Tide by John M Barry (1997). This is a story about the Mississippi Flood of 1927. You become transfixed by the magnitude of the trouble the Mississipians, mostly black, had to put up with by the rising waters and the hard life on the levee along the river near Greenville. Most interesting is that although the whites were allowed to leave the area, most of the black people were not. they were not allowed on the evacuation boats. Thuss they were forced to remain on the levees, they had nowhere to go, and to eat, to be given food which was not available on the levees, they had to work. They were again held and treated as slaves.

The True Believers

2008-03-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

Over the past three months I have been reading the main blogs which address the Scruggs Matter. Every one of the them is against Dick Scruggs, Zach Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom. Also, those who comment at these blogs predominently share in the theme of the blog.

One would have thought there would be more balance and would have thought more balance in the comments generated by the entries in the blogs.

Every now and then a comment will be entered which is balanced or is clearly "on the side of the defendants." Such a comment will be rejected at one of the main blogs. On another, such a comment may generate further comment and that is good. Folo, though pretty one-sided, allows for such comments. The commentator has to have a thick skin though from time to time because true-believer Scruggs detractors will add their comments in opposition. Sometimes the counter - comments can get a bit dicey.

There is some human nature at work here. I think our aggression instinct comes into play in such matters. I also think our desire to be a part of a group enhances these instincts of aggression. See, Gustav le Bon, The Crowd (1895); See also, S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1821).

So what have we? Yet another example of the "True Beiever" phenomenon. See Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951) ; Wikipedia, The True Believer; see also, S. Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (1930).

"I require mercy not sacrifice"

2008-03-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

The power of government in the Scruggs Litigation is now left with one target, one alleged wrongdoer, Zach Scruggs. He is the youngest, least experienced, least responsible for anything in this trouble. He is a person who, at his age, was still in the thrall of older people. The forces of government are now going to be used to "bring this young man to justice." These forces are being used to destroy him. To sacrifice him.

The government has gotten this young man in its sights by reason of a highly objectionable entrapment, an entrapment wherein a sitting judge used his long time friend, who betrayed his long time friend, to bring his friend into a bribe and to use his friend to bring others into that bribe. The judge's target was Dick Scruggs. The last object of destruction of this outrageous abuse of government power is Zach Scruggs. The others have all been gotten.

The power of government now unleashed on Zach Scruggs is completely out of proportion to the situation.

What comes to mind, what government over-reaction might come into consciousness? In recent memory -- Ruby Ridge and Waco. These examples may seem severe but I am not so sure. The power of government can bring great destruction, destruction which is not justified by the so-called wrong sought to be corrected or punished.

Government seeks to make a sacrifice of Zach Scruggs to its supposed majesty of the law.

Let's Hope the Case is On

2008-03-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

Let us hope the Scruggs Case is still on with Zach Scruggs taking the lead. It is apparent Dick Scruggs had to plead as he did in order to give his son, Zach, a chance at proving his innocence. Zach Scruggs did not stand a chance with his case being combined with that of Dick Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom. One can hardly fail to see the due process problem here. Judge Bigger's denial of the motion to sever was way over the top.

I also hope the issue of "entrapment as a matter of law" will come up and that it will be used to vindicate Zach Scruggs. Again, we cannot have respect for the judicial system if state judges become agents of the Federal Government. Especially if the judge cum government agent pursued his mark when the mark did not pursue the judge and when the judge cum government agent was the actual person who proposed the bribe.

Wikiscruggs Is Now a Public Wiki

2008-03-18T06:22:00.000-07:00

Wikiscruggs is now a public wiki. I have created another wiki which is limited. To get to the public wiki to read or participate go to http://www.wikiscruggs.com/. The limited wiki can be found at www.wikiscruggs.com/wiki.

Dick Scruggs, A Man of Character

2008-03-17T10:14:00.001-07:00

The evidence in this case shows us that Dick Scruggs is a man of character. He got caught up in some wrongdoing and he is going to take a good bit of punishment for it. But I think we will see there is real character to the man.

I have known some people who have gotten themselves in a good deal of trouble but they have still shown character in the face of their own human failings. The one who comes first to mind is my law school classmate and long ago friend Egil "Bud" Krogh. Another is a man I only knew of as interested Seattle lawyer watching the life unfold of another Seattle lawyer, John Erhichman.

(And, it should also be said even though President Richard M. Nixon did wrong, I still hold that he was and will be understood to be a man of character too. I simply cannot share in the desires of many to pass judgment. There was much good in the man.)

This step in the life of Dick Scruggs will most surely be something from which he will derive great existential benefit. I also think he will share it with us and we will all benefit.

I seem to recall this "Judge ye not, lest ye be judged." That is a good proverb to keep in mind.

As time moves on I will say more about the character of Dick Scruggs as I think more about it.

Earwigging is Lobbying (And Judicial Corruption)

2008-03-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

It seems clear the judicial culture in Mississippi commonly accepted the cultural phenomenon of earwigging. To earwig a judge means to talk privately with a judge about common things between the judge and the talker, to influence, to get a judge to go the way of the earwigger.

Earwigging is lobbying. It is similar to the efforts a lobbyist makes to sway legislator to the lobbyist's point of view. It is private and it is personal. More often than not it does not involve bribery. And, of course it does not have to involve bribery.

A few days ago, a New York lawyer, David Boies, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reporters said this:

I tried some cases before Mississippi state court judges who were just great,and I also tried cases in front of Mississippi judges who were just terrible. There is undoubtedly some real corruption – where a judge does something for money or favors. But I think that is a very small problem in Mississippi, and a tiny problem in most places. The bigger problem is where judges do things because they know the people, because they like the people, because they’re comfortable with the people. That’s a much more difficult thing to get your arms around, partly because its human nature. And the problem’s not unique to Mississippi. [Emphasis added.]

To earwig means, in its essence, to play on the human frailty of liking people whom we think are our friends, people we feel comfortable with, our hunting buddies, our golf buddies, our lawyer group buddies, the "brothers" in those "fraternities" of which we like to think we are a part.

Judicial Corruption in Mississippi?

2008-03-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

When you think about it, it is hard to believe a lawyer with the savy of Dick Scruggs would have believed earwigging in Mississippi was "that wrong", that uncommon, or that a sitting state judge and the federal government would use the practice to lead a broken down, out of control lawyer, Tim Balducci, into a bribery sting.

It must have been common knowledge to the lawyers involved, as well as the judge, that earwigging was a common practice. And, that even though a violation of court rule and Rules of Professional Conduct, it was commonly engaged in. Witness Judge Lackey's agreement to enter an order ex parte on behalf of the attorney for the plaintiffs in the Jones Case to seal the file leaving it to be opened at the behest of the attorney who sought the sealing order.

Thus, I think the federal focus now must be to expand the the corruption investigation into the real problem in Mississippi -- corrupt judges and a climate of pervasive political use of the judicial system.

Suffice it to say, I doubt Dick Scruggs would be in the life changing position he is in today were it not for deep problems of judicial corruption in Mississippi.

Is it over?

2008-03-14T19:32:00.001-07:00

In a way, the story of the Scruggs Litigation is just beginning.

What might we see unfold if we watch closely? The care of a man for his son and his law partner, the stupidity of Tim Balducci, the arrogance of Joey Langston, the hunger of a Circuit Court Judge to bring his friend to ruin for a bit of fame, the violation of a judge's duties to the bar association, the judiciary, the people of Mississippi, proscutors with vanity license plates advertising their love for a highly dubious Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), and the list goes on and on.

One might conclude there is sin almost everywhere in this case -- lawyers, judges, politicians, law firm employees, insurance companies, tobacco companies, state attorneys general, lawyers and law firms who graze the landscape for poor souls who suffer at the hands and minds of "large" combines and small combines intent on making a buck no matter what the costs to the consumer and the enviroment (but no one really cares about the small combines (no assets and no glory -- read money)).

One would be hard pressed to find anything decent or uplifting in any of this. And, no one seems have enough personal integrity to step back a bit and, well, to bear witness to one's own complicity in the whole business. Yes, I mean complicity.

For now, all of us are home free. Dick Scruggs and Sid Backstrom are going to jail. Hopefully, people will be decent enough to give Zach Scruggs a pass. What one sees here, maybe, is the love of father and of a friend. Quite humbling I would say. Quite commendable.

All of this is very sad. A lot of it is very wrong.

But, what is really wrong, and very sad, is this: The system of law and justice in America has become corrupt. In its very essence, judges, prosecutors and private lawyers are really politicians -- people, who at bottom, exercise power. One gets the impression that law and the rule of law, and the judicial system is more a playground for those who love power than it is a place where the history of the human knowledge of right and wrong is written. Where the litigants and the judges are actually seeking to do real right by their fellows.

Those who use the judicial system as a playground of power are all right with this. They do not know any different. They have not had anyone tell them the human mind and spirit are capable of something which is much better. And, they are too proud, pugnacious and greedy for money and approval to care.

As one gets older, gets very close to end of his life, one sees the truth of the phrase "power corrupts."

Of the many roles played in this tale which may be the most sad from a standpoint of simple humanity -- man to man -- is the part played by Judge Lackey.

I will hold off from saying more -- I think more is to come about Ed Peters, Judge Bobby DeLaughter, Joey Langston and Judge Lackey, the state judge who became a government agent for purposes of putting the sting on Dick Scruggs.

For me, this episode in the history of America leads me to think this: Not one of the players in this sad drama could have read the authors and the books which have told us about ourselves -- Theodore Dreiser (An American Tradgedy), Sinclair Lewis (Babbit), Frank Norris (McTeague), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) or the New Testament.

The winners and the losers? I wonder. Is there really any difference? Is it possible this whole situation may have a simple and common basis in the desire of people to engage in war and the notion that material things are the primary measure of all things. (Or, maybe, unknowingly fulfill their own versions of the oedipus complex -- but I will save that line of thought for another time.)

Who really knows? I suspect there is something much deeper and simpler playing itself out in the whole Scruggs Litigation Matter. Who really knows? Someone will come closer to understanding and knowing what has really happened as time passes. Maybe.

But, the entire situation may never be known or understood. Like so much we think we know, the real facts, the real attachments of human emotion and motivation, the real truth will be lost to history.

Maybe in waiting we will finally come to know. But, I must say, I doubt it. I doubt it because we go into death and into history seeing the world, always, in the way that suits us best. We live out our lives in our daydreams, diversions. Pascal was right.

Eliot Spitzer, Helicopter Skiing, Long Haul Trucking

2008-03-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I fantasized Eliot Spitzer may have been set up. Oops. $80,000 is a lot to pay for the pleasures of the flesh. Even for the flesh of one as comely as "she who serviced #9."

Such an amount (investment in destruction) leads me to the (humble conclusion) big people with evil in their hearts and access to highly tasteful young women had nothing to do with Mr. Spitzer's trouble.

Well, we are all sinners. And, well, if we want to get overly excited about such things then maybe we should figure out a way to take various people out of history because of their dalliances. The list would be endless and we would be with great blank spots in our history.

On a more mundane level, Mr. Spitzer could have better "gotten his rocks off" helicopter or cat skiing in British Columbia, Canada. Or maybe "base jumping" from skyscrapers in Singapore or bridges in Colorado.

Or, maybe driving a long haul truck after 10 hours behind the wheel in conditions of ice and snow in the Montana Rockies pulling a tanker with 6000 gallons of highly hazardous material in it on the way to a laminating plant in Oregon.

Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)

2008-03-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

It seems the government wants to use Fed. R. Evid. 404(b) to show predisposition to commit bribery on the part of Dick Scruggs, Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom. They was to use the information from Joey Langston and Tim Balducci regarding the Wilson Case before Judge Bobby DeLaughter to show in essence that the defendants had bribery in thier hearts when Judge Lackey, a government agent acting outside of his authority and outside of various rules applicable to him, put the sting on Tim Balducci. Balducci supposedly being the agent for the defendants.

This is very interesting. What is of real interest is whether it is proper to use 404(b) evidence to proof a predisposition to commit a crime. That, it seems, is what has to be established by the government in this entrapment case, this outrageous government act entrapment case.

One can imagine using such evidence to help establish a crime. One has a hard time imagining using such evidence, or having the right to use such evidence, to establish predisposition regarding defending against entrapment.

Or, looking at it another way, using such evidence to excuse the conduct of the government and Judge Lackey.

Eliot Spitzer

2008-03-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Years ago I worked with a person who was quite publicly visible in a certain jurisdiction and who was clearly in the sights of a certain extremely powerful organization. I recall a story of my friend being approached one night in a Holiday Inn by a very attractive woman who sought his attentions. He turned her down. With some cleverness and other come-ons my friend could have succumbed.

So I wonder, was Eliot Spitzer set up? He certainly did not have friends in high places.

Earwigging -- A Mississippi Tradition

2008-03-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Mississippi has a long history of an unusual pratice -- earwigging. Earwigging means "to annoy or attempt to influence by private talk ."

In the past century, Mississippi developed rules of trial practice which were directed toward bringing an end to the practice. The Mississippi Law Journal in 1936 - 1937 discussed such a rule -- for example Chancery Rule 30:

Rule 30.-EARWIGGING THE CHANCELLOR PROHIBITED. No person shall undertake to discuss with or in the presence or hearing of the Chancellor the law or the facts or alleged facts of any litigated cause then pending in the court or likely to be instituted therein, except in the orderly progress of the trial, and arguments or briefs connected therewith; nor attempt in any manner except as above stated, to influence his decision in any such cause or matter. Any person who shall violate this rule, knowing that such conduct is prohibited, shall be guilty of a contempt.

Proceedings of the Thirty-First Annual Meeting of the Mississippi State Bar [comments] ,9 Miss. L.J. 6 (1936-1937)

This rule was commented on as follows:

Some lawyers have ingenious methods of evading this rule, and it is almost impossible sometimes to prevent ignorant laymen from approaching the chancellor about a particular law suit. Almost every term of court someone attempts to talk to me about their cook who has a divorce case in my court, and how much she has been wronged. They always carefully preface their conversation with the statement that they wouldn't try to influence the court for the world.

Id.

Current Mississippi Circuit Court Rules (like other Mississippi court rules) include a rule prohibiting earwigging.

Rule 1.10 EARWIGGING PROHIBITED No person shall undertake to discuss with or in the presence or hearing of the judge the law or the facts or alleged facts of any case then pending in the court or likely to be instituted therein, except in the orderly progress of the trial, and arguments or briefs connected therewith; nor attempt in any manner, except as stated above, to influence the decision of the judge in any such case or matter.

The tradition of earwigging is so common the rules adopted by the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance include a rule prohibiting earwigging. Commission Rule 5.H "Earwigging Prohibited."

This rule is similar to the Chancery Court rule above regarding punishment for rule violation. Punishment for "knowingly" violating the rule may be "contempt." But, the earlier Chancery rule said if one violated the rule "[he] shall be guilty of contempt."

The current court rules do not have this "contempt" provision. That is to say, a specific punishment is not provided for. Earwigging, is not a misdemeanor or a felony. It is just a rule of court.

So in the Scruggs Litigation what do we have in relation to this historical phenomenon of an usual Mississippi tradition – earwigging?

It seems we may have a situation where a trial judge engaged in earwigging with the attorney(s) for the plaintiff in the Jones v. Scruggs case. Evidence of the earwigging is found in the fact of the very unusual ore tenus motion whereby the judge entered an order sealing the file of the case from all the world open to be unsealed in the sole discretion of the attorney who filed the case.

Next we have the same judge again engaging in earwigging with a person who was a friend of one of the defendants in the action about the case but only such that the judge might know that all the defendant might want in the case was that it be sent to arbitration as provided in the agreement between the parties.

We also have two old friends talking about the retirement of the older friend and the new law firm of the younger friend.

Then, after several days, the judge decides earwigging he had wrongfully engaged in violation of a court rule could lead to something better. An effort to use his friend to bring down a lawyer who was not liked by a segment of the Mississippi bar and judicial system and representatives of the Office of the United States Attorney.

It also may have been a contributing factor that the judge knew his wrongful earwigging could lead to something against him. He was a member of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance. The Commission had recently been involved in disciplinary actions where the judge disciplined had engaged in ex parte contact with attorneys and parties.

The judge becomes an agent of the U.S. Attorney. In agreeing to do so, the judge agrees that he will violate the authority of his office, State Judges are not elected act as agents for the government of the united states. He also violates the principles of separation of power between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government. And, significantly, on his own he decides it is permissible for him to violate numerous provisions of the Mississippi Code of Judicial Conduct.

Making matters even worse, the judge in question was and is a member of the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance.

Committed as an agent for the federal government, the judge begins to use his friend to capture the target, Richard Scruggs. The judge pursues his friend.

At first he engages in more earwigging with the attorney for the plaintiff in the Jones Case. He then says he is going to recuse himself and tells his other earwigging partners. This was before he became a government agent. Once an agent, he says he is not going to recuse himself from the case. Obvioulsy, he wanted to pursue his earwigging of his friend, his rule violating earwigging to trap his friend and perhaps his friend's friend.

Weeks go by. During that period, the judge's friend engages in actions which are entirely irrational regarding the creation of a law firm with a non-lawyer. The friend and the non-lawyer write strange and overly aggressive letters to a local lawyer who is criticizing the new law firm and is saying the combination of a lawyer and a non-lawyer in a law firm is a violation of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct.

The judge knows all about his friend's meltdown and he knows of the content of the letters. At this point he then begins to push a scheme whereby he convinces his friend that he is in desperate financial trouble. He needs money and he needs it fast. The young friend goes along and agrees to help. He is now trapped. Aware that another lawyer in the state was just sentenced to 11 years in prison for alleged wrongdoing with a judge he agrees to become involved in the judge's scheme to trap his friend.

If the foregoing is true, what the judge and the federal government have done is extremely troublesome. We cannot have a system of justice due the respect and trust of the people if this sort of conduct is allowed.

Jefferson Davis, Mississippian

2008-03-06T11:53:00.000-08:00

This morning I read the first few chapters of Shelby Foote's Civil War Narrative. I read about Jefferson Davis, his youth, his character, his desire to be a leader of his people, his tenacity and his heroism. Quite remarkable. We have little knowledge of the way in which realities impose themselves on character, even sometimes flawed character. As it is said, the line between good and evil shifts in the soul of every man. Every man! I find it more than passing strange people these days and in the Scruggs Litigation find it so easy to judge. I find it sad, and I find it immoral.

And, that is what I also want to say. What to we look for in the law, in judging? We want to have faith in the process and the people. We know there is an animating principle at work in the core of the process. So what is it? I listened to Abraham Lincoln's rebuttal to the speech Stephen Douglas gave about Kansas - Nebraska Act, the one he gave in Peoria, Illinois. The first response Mr. Lincoln gave to one of Douglas' speeches. What was the essential point? It was simply this, morality.

I particularly object to the NEW position which the avowed principle of this Nebraska law gives to slavery in the body politic. I object to it because it assumes that there CAN be a MORAL RIGHT in the enslaving of one man by another.

It was immoral to treat another human being as a chattel. And, that was it, and that was all.

How We Should Look at Things, Part 2

2008-03-05T09:05:00.000-08:00

What should we be looking for when we observe the processes of law? Taking sides and then watching the process as if it was a game does not seem very edifying. What a serious citizen should be looking for is much deeper.

It is much deeper because in the matter he is actually observing forces playing themselves out. And, when they do they set the stage or the record for the way things will happen in the future.

The serious citizen is actually "watching the mind of man made." He is observing the creation and refinement of culture. Not only is he watching history in the making, he is watching the filial sense of man progressing or going backward to a darker time.

So one hopes in observing the Scruggs Litigation he is able to see the positive force of a soul of the law animating everything being done, especially the work of the judge and the jury.

How Should We Look At Things?

2008-03-02T16:03:00.000-08:00

When I think about the process of the law as presented by the Dick Scruggs Matter I wonder what it is I am to do? What should a reasonable person bring to the situation? Should I be one of those who takes pleasure in possibility that someone is in trouble? Should I become a defender of those who are in trouble? Should I just be an observer reporting what interests me about the situation. Should I be a commentator with a bias?

None of these approaches seems right to me. If I take a side I think I want it to be the side of souls of those who are involved in the the situation whether they be the souls of the defendants, the representatives of the government, the witnesses who are agents for the government, the witnesses who have gone to the side of the government and who are now telling things about friends, judges who have become government agents, witness who are trying to save themselves and in doing so are rationalizing that the hurt they bring to others is permitted and righteous. No, I want to be on the side of the souls which are being refined as a result of the involvements of those who are in the care of those souls.

Does this seem odd to you? I suppose it does.

Today, I have been thinking about the souls of those who seem to be feeling loss because Judge Vinson dismissed the "indictment" against Dick Scruggs in the District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The representatives of these souls are angry. They say the judge has helped out a "rich, white guy." In the core of their beings they do not mean what they say. Or if they do, they should not.

If they have a complaint about Judge Vinson's efforts they should try to show where Judge Vinson went wrong. Personally, I do not think Judge Vinson's decision was wrong. It may be something a person does not like because he wants Dick Scruggs to be punished for being what he is, but as far as the law is concerned I do not think the judge was wrong. If he was, well, tell me so and explain it. My conclusions about things change in light of reason, in light of truth. If I am loyal to anything, I hope I am loyal to the law as it is applied to the facts.

The Justice System? Justice or War?

2008-03-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

The case against Dick Scruggs in Alabama was dismissed yesterday. The Order can be found here. One of the main commentators in these matters said this about the decision:

UPDATE: I read it, and all I can say is thank goodness, it has been a long time coming -- finally, a case where the criminal justice system doesn't railroad a famous, rich, white guy! Famous rich friends of Dickie Scruggs -- it's party time!

This cynical comment tells us something about a lawyer's view of the law, or at least the lawyer commentator's view of the law. His side lost. His enemy won.

So how to address the work of Judge Vinson? Make fun of it. Tell people Judge Vinson is a partisan for Dick Scruggs. The comment does not show care or respect for law. It also shows great disrespect for Judge Vinson.

The commentator did not address the issues Judge Vinson decided and the law was applied by Judge Vinson as to the issues and the facts pertaining to the issues. Instead he simply makes an ad hominum attack upon Judge Vinson's work.

A true lawyer would comment on the law not upon personalities. What is at stake in these proceedings is not winners and losers but the law. Unless of course law is not about law but instead is simply another forum for war.

Tournament by Shelby Foote

2008-02-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

Reading Tournament by Shelby Foote gives one an understanding of the culture of Mississippi especially the culture and character of those in power. A masculine culture -- hunting, card playing, winning at being planters, winning and being involved in winning.

Judical Entrapment Violates the Rule of Law

2008-02-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

Use of judge in an entrapment violates the fundamental principle upon which the judicial process is founded -- the rule of law, or rule by law. The rule of law is the opposite of the rule of power or judgment of power. The foundation of the rule of law is that the "end does not justify the means." Justice cannot be acheived if its basis is injustice, law breaking. When a judge becomes a government agent in an entrapment, the judiciary becomes an agent in breaking the law so as to punish one caught in the trap of the entrapment. See Wikiscruggs.

Existential Meanderings

2008-02-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

I have been reading some of the internet journals (blogs) which focus on the Scruggs Litigation. One is a solo effort. Another a joint effort. Yet another a solo effort which brings in other sources mostly from the first two. A national newspaper with a "law blog." A person with a "tort reform" agenda. The sites are interesting but, . . . I guess it seems the authors all are true believers of one sort or another.

I have not found, at least so far, any sites which are written by true believers for Dick Scruggs, Zach Scruggs and Sidney Backstrom.

I do not know where I stand on the question of the guilt or innocence of the defendants. Right now it seems they have not a friend in the world. That is unfair, I think. I admit to being a bit partial to the guy the apparatus of government is going after. Despite my belief the mind of man, let us say man's government, can be a good thing and do good things and protect people from the bad guys and even ourselves, I have a healthy distrust of it.

When a person becomes a government employee or an elected representative of the people he does not become smarter nor more ethical than he was before he got the job. Suffice it to say, we are all sinners and power does have a real tendency to corrupt. So the good guys are not always perfect and the bad guys are not always bad. In fact the dividing line between good and evil probably runs through the soul of each person, each and every person, involved in the situation.

At the moment, at the moment of my self directed involvement and self sponsored involvement I have to admit to some real tough questions moving though my mind about the situation and the main players in the situation.

A topic which keeps coming up is the question of entrapment. I hope I stick with this topic. Simply put, there is something (which seems to me) insidious in the use of a sitting judge as a government agent offering to be bribed in a bribery entrapment scheme. Especially one who is a close friend of the person and family of one of the targets of the scheme.

What has happened in the Scruggs Litigation seems contrary to our value of "rule by law." Contrary in several respects.

Evidence of Other Crimes, For What Purpose?

2008-02-26T19:18:00.000-08:00

I read today Judge Biggers is going to allow evidence of other crimes. This is the the Wilson v. Scruggs, Judge Bobby DeLaughter, Trent Lott, Joey Langston, Tim Balducci, Ed Peters, Steve Paterson stuff. Evidence for what purpose? Can you really use "evdence of other crimes" to prove the pre-isposition necessary for the government to say there was no entrapment? Seems a stretch. And, then, whose pre-disposition is being established -- the pre-disposition of someone who is not a party to the acceptance of the judge's offered bribe. My head is spinning. It does not seem "other crime evidence" can be used to establish pre-disposition.

Public Corruption in Office of US Attorney?

2008-02-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

Last night's 60 Minutes piece on Don Seigelman raises concern about the US Attorney's Office. The question must be asked: Is the Office of the United States Attorney being used for political purposes? Is it selecting and processing cases which have political objectives rather than law enforcement objectives? Are the motives of the prosecution politics rather than law enforcement? Is the goal (a)the exercise of power or (b) the exercise of law enforcement and justice?

Such questions are extremely important when government actually induces conduct which is then said to be criminal. And, in the Scruggs Litigation, extremely important when a sitting judge in a particular case is used as a government agent to cause a person who comes in contact with the judge to accept a bribe the judge has proposed.

Entrapment Per Se

2008-02-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

Dick Scruggs and Zach Scruggs and Sid Backstrom have an argument that the conduct of the government is "entrapment per se" or "entrapment as a matter of law." The reasons for this are being developed at Wikiscruggs.com.

Personal Injury Cases 2008

2008-02-21T18:45:00.001-08:00

It is just a calm Thursday evening in Spokane, maybe any city in the United States. I am watching some mindless television programs on a local station as I work at this or that at my desk. The ads are interesting. At 6:00 PM someone was advertising that his company bought personal injury lawsuits. "Why wait. We will give you your money now." And then a beautiful young woman in a wheelchair comes on and says something about getting her "money from [(let's say) Get Your Money Now] right away" and not having to "wait for a court date."

At 6:45 a nice young man comes up on the TV screen and says some thing like "[i]f you have been injured, call me, Blah Blah "One Call, That's All!" This guy's a young "legal" entrepreneur from Utah who is making quite a hit locally.

Sleazy.

And, of course I wonder? Are the two advertisement related in some way. The one gets the case and a 40% contingency and the other gets a claim less the contingency at a heck of discount. Don't know, the One Call That's All came after the pitch for the purchase of the lawsuit.

I suppose I should be a bit more naive. But sometimes I think sleaze is an American epidemic.