Wouldn’t surprise me if your theory didn’t make it into the WSJ’s pitch to him to give them the interview. And though I’m sure the judge is deeply astute in Mississippi law, I doubt that he is/was in matters of handling sudden national publicity. (Even though he knew what was coming, he still may not have been ready for some of it.)

I mean, though it still bothers me that he blabbed to the WSJ at first opportunity, he seems to have recovered his composure (and probity) since then. And I’d take the sworn word of ‘most any judge over the sworn word of ‘most any bishop every day of the week.

But that’s just me.

Uh-huh, Overt Act 22 reflects a November 1, 2007, Balducci “discussion” with Dickie (no word whether face-to-face or on the phone) in which the latter agrees to “take care of” another $10,000 payment to Judge Lackey, and “said he would ‘hire’ Balducci to prepare jury instructions in an unrelated case to cover the $10,000 extra to be paid to the judge.”

Now here’s something I hadn’t caught until just now: Overt Act 21 (Balducci’s “We paid for this order …” statement to Zach and Backstrom) is introduced with the customary “On or about [date]” (in this instance, also November 1).

But between OA 22 and OA 24, the “or about” phrase goes away, leaving the definite “On [such-and-so date].” Then OA 25 again says, “On or about November 13, 2007, [Backstrom and Balducci talk on the phone about] the bribery scheme … .”

Whether this adverbial phenomenon suggests anything other than a spot of careless drafting, I’ll leave to others’ speculation; I just find it interesting enough to mention.

The order raises some other questions in my mind. Did they get a wiretap on Balducci as soon as they had him making the bribe offer on tape (when they’d clearly have probable cause) or from the git-go (probable cause based on Lackey as reliable informant)? And then when Balducci flipped and somehow proved himself a reliable informant did they then move on to wiretap Scruggs et al? All speculation.

Michael Shaheen: The first head of the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsiblity and spent 22 years in that post, died of cancer late last month. He was 67.

In 1975, Attorney General Ed Levi asked Shaheen (Yale, Vanderbilt Law), then a DOJ lawyer, to start an internal investigations office, which he directed until his retirement in 1997. Among other high-profile investigations conducted by his office, Shaheen probed the misuse of FBI employees for the personal use of the agency’s famed director, J. Edgar Hoover.

Shaheen grew up in Como, Mississippi, a tiny town that the Law Blog drove through on the way from Memphis to Oxford last week.

R.I.P.