folo

I confess I was a little disappointed, the other day after my flowahy rant, that nobody hit the hyperlink I’d made in the phrase “the utter lousiness of their papers’ websites.” I mean, clicking on “utter lousiness” and ending up at the Clarion-Ledger woulda surprised none of you — but I was really trying to send them a message. Ho-kay, it was a little manipulative so probably deserved to fail (but if you forgive and still care to aid my too-subtle campaign, the best way is to click on “rant” and from there . . . ).

Anyhow, no thanks to the C-L’s webmaster (but rather to The Google) did I find Jerry Mitchell’s new story, the source of this post’s headline. As we saw four days ago (at “UPDATE” and comments), Mitchell reported that

" A search warrant executed Monday at the Booneville law office of Joey Langston, where [Tim] Balducci previously worked, sought documents related to a Hinds County case as well as documents regarding payments to Jackson lawyer Ed Peters, who played no known role in the case. In 2001, Peters retired as Hinds County district attorney.

Bobby DeLaughter, the circuit judge in the Hinds County case and an assistant DA under Peters, said he’s not surprised the FBI is looking at the case because of Balducci’s statement.

"It doesn’t bother me, " the judge said. "If I were the prosecutor, I would do the same thing. "

He said he welcomes the scrutiny because "I know I didn’t take a bribe. " "

Well, by neddie jingo, scrutiny he shall have:

Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter has received a federal grand jury subpoena in the FBI’s expanding investigation into judicial bribery and corruption in Mississippi.

Asked about receiving a subpoena, DeLaughter said Wednesday, “I don’t know that I can comment on the investigation.” …

In the normal course of things, we don’t expect to hear from “bodies buried” — but these days in Mississippi, when Tim Balducci tells the FBI that you‘re one of ‘em, expect a subpoena.

As the two Mitchell stories attempt to explain, DeLaughter’s current difficulties arise out something that first hit Hinds County Court back in ’94, as asbestos-plaintiffs’ attorneys Alwyn Luckey and William Roberts Wilson, Jr., sued Dickie Scruggs over the splitting of fees. Luckey and Wilson sued in federal district court too, but the federal judge sent the asbestos-fee-determination issue back to Hinds County — where it landed on the bench of Bobby DeLaughter, who then appointed one Bobby Sneed as special master to research and make recommendations.

Meanwhile, at some point Luckey and Wilson ended up as separate lawsuits, and finally (!) in 2005, a U.S. magistrate ruled that Scruggs owed Luckey north of $17 million. As Mitchell’s Monday story says, “Back in Hinds County, the only dispute that remained was between Scruggs and Wilson. Sneed’s recommendations in January 2006 led [Charlie] Merkel [once Luckey's lawyer, now Wilson's] to ask for more than $15 million.”

Well, today’s Mitchell story reports that, three days later, Dickie named Joey Langston as his lead counsel, assisted by Tim Balducci. And a month after that — lo! — DeLaughter rejected most of Sneed’s conclusions, deciding instead that Dickie owed Wilson only “belated payments” of just under $1.5 million.

When both sides finally met for trial in August 2006, DeLaughter told lawyers there was nothing left but a “negative balance,” according to the transcript. Without actual damages, it’s impossible for the jury to assess punitive damages, “which leaves us with a trial by jury to determine bragging rights,” DeLaughter said.

Both sides settled the case. Merkel won’t say [for] how much, but said it was substantially less than $15 million.

(I didn’t quite get that “nothing left but a ‘negative balance’” bit, did you? If so, could you please ‘splain it to me? Thank you.) But back to Monday’s story (dang, I wish Mitchell weren’t so hard to folo!):

Judges usually follow the recommendations of their special masters. “That’s why they appoint them – to save themselves the work,” Merkel said.

“The contract had originally been interpreted more in accord with Wilson’s contentions, which would have given about $15 million,” Merkel said.

But by the end, DeLaughter concluded Wilson was “owed nothing in addition to the belated payments by Scruggs,” Merkel said. “It was a 180-degree turn.”

[John] Jones and [Steve] Funderburg [who represented Dickie in Wilson] disagreed, saying there was no about-face by DeLaughter.

“It wasn’t an extraordinary turnaround,” Jones said. “It was a ruling he made on their motion.”

Both lawyers said they believe the fatal mistake plaintiff’s lawyers made was to file a “motion for quantification,” getting DeLaughter to decide on amounts rather than leaving the matter up to the jury.

Merkel responded he had to do this because DeLaughter already had ruled he [my emphasis] would interpret the contract, rather than the jury.

On Monday, Mitchell’s agenda seemed to be heppin’ DeLaughter as much as he could — for instance, in his conclusion:

If you were lining up all of Mississippi’s judges in order on their likelihood to accept bribes, the least likely judges would be Henry Lackey, Tom Lee and Bobby DeLaughter, Jones said. “I would think a lawyer would be high, stoned or insane to even think that had any kind of chance.”

Funderburg remembered delivering paperwork to DeLaughter’s office on July 3, 2006, only to discover the judge was there on his day off, feverishly going through all the paperwork in the case in preparation for the trial. “He was working his tail off,” he said.

If a judge is interested in something besides following the law, “I don’t think a judge does that,” he said.

In every matter in which DeLaughter ruled, Jones said he felt the judge followed the law, even when the rulings went against the defense.

In the end, “I think he did get it right,” he said. “What he did is not consistent with someone who has been approached or bought off. If you’ve already decided to rule for the defendants, you don’t do that kind of analysis.”

Today’s conclusion is also friendly as can be. Until the very last sentence:

[DeLaughter] has said he isn’t surprised the FBI is looking at the case because of Balducci’s statement. He welcomes the scrutiny, he said, because “I know I didn’t take a bribe.” Any talk of [Ed] Peters getting money “sounds like a bunch of bullcrap to me,” said DeLaughter, who served as an assistant district attorney under Peters.

On Wednesday, Peters could not be reached for comment, but he is listed as joining Balducci’s firm in the fall-winter issue of UM Lawyer, a magazine produced by the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Balducci also listed former Gov. Bill Allain and former U.S. Magistrate Judge Norman Gillespie as joining his Oxford law office.

Merkel said he believes special-interest groups stepping into Mississippi in 2000 and spending millions on judicial races caused the system to tilt out of balance. “When they say, ‘You’re our boy, and here’s a million dollars,’ they’re doing it in hopes he becomes their guy.”

(Uh-huh, and just imagine how much Allain and Gillespie love seeing their names again here.)

Now I’ve noticed some Y’allPers bragging on Jerry Mitchell, but you know what? I can’t see that he does his job a lot better than the C-L’s webmaster (so druther consume Anita Lee‘s or Alyssa Schnugg‘s journalism any old day — and shoot, sometimes Alyssa even walks the Eagle right into the pond house for us)! Now that’s public service.

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