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UPDATED BELOW

Today’s most notable development in the Dickie Scruggs saga has been Judge Henry L. Lackey’s interview in the Wall Street Journal (subs. only).

Judge Lackey, who’s 73, says that Dickie’s alleged co-conspirator Tim Balducci’s offering him a bribe for a favorable ruling gave him a “shock that I can’t put into words.”

“My first thought was: What kind of character flaw has he discovered in me that would lead him to think that I would do something like this? I was furious. I mean, this strikes at the heart of our judicial system.”

The judge says that when Balducci suggested the bribe back in March, at first he did nothing because, as WSJ’s Ashby Jones and Peter Lattman phrase it, “he considered himself friendly with Mr. Balducci and feared the ramifications.”

“I worried what would become of this young man, his wife, his children,” said Judge Lackey. “He was one of the brightest legal stars on the horizon that I’d come across, and I worried a great deal about the consequences.”

After a few days of feeling “like my reputation was being denigrated,” though, he “had to do something” and contacted federal prosecutors in Oxford. “Eventually” (an intriguing word in this context, no?), he agreed to help them and offered to wear a wire.

But instead of wiring the judge, they wired his office for audio- and video-recording. (Thus they captured not only Tim Balducci’s multiple phone calls full of details of the bribery scheme and visits to deliver payments to the judge — but several months’ worth of lawd-only-knows what insights into lawd-only-knows who else‘s circuit-court business. Do you see a problem here?)

The judge says he looks forward to testifying at this trial, which is good, since we certainly look forward to learning what this “eventually” entailed.

Another part of the WSJ story that neither David Rossmiller nor I quite understand is why Dickie Scruggs allowed or told his lawyer, John Keker, to badmouth Judge Lackey to the reporters as follows:

“I find it remarkable that this high-minded government witness is talking to the national media, and it makes me wonder if he is interested in notoriety rather than seeing that justice is done. I’ll say this — he sure as hell didn’t get bribed by Dick Scruggs or anyone else in his law firm.”

Seems to me that if you’re Dickie Scruggs (or his attorney, or anyone wishing him well), this is the best possible time to mum-up entirely about Henry L. Lackey — as if victim-blaming ever impresses — and you certainly have no room for sarcasm about him. For as Rossmiller points out,

Keker is representing Scruggs, a man known for his flamboyant use of media to pursue his own ends in litigation, and there is nothing inherently wrong with Lackey talking to the Wall Street Journal or anyone else. What is wrong is the alleged bribes offered to the judge, not the judge speaking out about it. Also, it appears that later in the story Scruggs himself spoke to the WSJ — note the words “In an interview, Mr. Scruggs said” followed by a quote from Scruggs about the controversy with Don Barrett about who represents the Scruggs Katrina Group clients. What is Scruggs doing talking to the national media about some family feud with Barrett at a time like this?

Earlier today, commenter Cujo359 said, “A thought that occurs to me is that you don’t normally try to bribe someone, particularly a judge, unless you have some reason to think he’ll accept the bribe. Did Lackey have such a reputation, were Balducci (and Scruggs) just unlucky to have picked a bad day to bribe him, or is that just how things are normally done in Mississippi and Lackey’s just one of the few honest judges there?”

Well, Cujo, this is the first I’ve heard of him too, but in at least one of the Mississippi blogs I saw some high praise of him. Given that this came from one or more strongly anti-Scruggs voices, I offer no warrant of validity — but no suggestion of invalidity, either. I simply don’t know. What I do know is that Mississippi is a small state with a small legal community. We’re talking two principals who reached their 60s and 70s via long years at Bar and Bench, respectively, and I find it hard to fathom that they wouldn’t be pretty familiar with each other by now. So either Judge Lackey ain’t as upright or Dickie Scruggs as smart as advertised, OR (just as, if not more likely) something(s) else in this tale ain’t just right either. I’m leaning toward Door #3.

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UPDATE: Here’s AP’s new backgrounder on Dickie. Colorful chap.