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In Part 4 of folo’s digest of the complaint tribunal’s findings (64-page pdf) in In Re: Petition for Reinstatement of J. Keith Shelton, we reach what I consider the most explosive piece of the story, (coincidentally?) the only one to brush against U.S. v. Scruggs and its cast of legal ne’er-do-wells eagles. As all-wrong as what we’ve seen so far may be, I believe that what you’ll learn here about Ed Peters’ way of doing things puts all that in shade . . .

Mr. Shelton and Jennings Get Indicted

Although arrested on April 16, 1997, Keith Shelton and James Jennings weren’t indicted for conspiracy and bribery — since they received the money, go figure — until August 14. And not until over five years later, in December 2002, did Shelton enter a "best interest plea, " which read in part:

I submit that this plea is a "Best Interest " plea. In addition, it is my position that the State could prove the allegations against me as charged. Thus, I admit none of the facts or forgoing elements of the crime charged.

That day, Judge Tomie Green entered an order withholding acceptance of Shelton’s plea and deferring that and his sentencing to the next term of court — but then she never called the case back to the docket.

In 2007, Robert Taylor, the former Chief Assistant District Attorney for the Seventh Circuit Court District and the attorney-in-charge who dismissed the case, would testify by deposition about the circumstances of these indictments and dismissals. His testimony (84-page pdf), according to the tribunal, “raises a number of concerns.”

Taylor, who was with the Hinds County DA’s office from June 1982 until June 2006, said that in 1997 he was only generally aware of Judge Patton’s allegations and some of what went on before Shelton and Jennings’ indictments. Taylor also knew that, in his phone conversations and meetings with Shelton, Patton had “deviated” from the script he’d been given (Taylor didn’t know whether this script came from someone in the DA’s office or from a cop). However, he said, it was generally agreed in the DA’s office that, since Patton didn’t follow the script with Shelton, "the case was a dog. "

Nonetheless, Shelton’s and Jennings’ cases were presented to the grand jury and both were indicted. To this day, Taylor swore, he doesn’t understand why. Shortly before dismissing the charges in late 2005, he wrote for the file a memorandum (one-page pdf*), later submitted to the tribunal, that called seeking and obtaining the indictments "an egregious error. "

* According to Taylor, his “Memorandum of Record: An Overview of the Case of State vs. Jennings No. 97-2-306,308″ originally had two pages, the second carrying only his signature, but in answer to a subpoena, the DA’s office provided only the first page.

Though he was the supervising attorney for the grand jury, Taylor couldn’t recall who presented the Shelton and Jennings cases, and while he was in the room most of the time, he also couldn’t say whether he was there for their presentation — but they certainly weren’t presented on his recommendation. From 1997 until he was assigned the case in 2003, he said, any number of assistants could have handled it; apparently none wanted to take something that weak to trial.

Not having been the reviewing attorney on the case, Taylor thought that this alleged bribery only had to do with Jennings’ JPC complaint. No one from law enforcement or the DA’s office ever told him that Shelton had spoken to Patton about a potential §1983 lawsuit — in fact, he learned that only from Shelton’s lawyer a couple of weeks before his tribunal deposition. Had he but known, he said, that would have colored his view of the case from the start.

Among other documents, Shelton’s lawyer showed Taylor a copy of the release agreement signed by Jennings that Shelton gave Patton at noon on April 16, 1997. Though he couldn’t say for sure whether Patton ever produced the original, he had a "deep and abiding belief that none of that hit the file before it went to the Grand Jury, " because "I believe it would have weakened the case even more and surely somebody would have rethought it by that time. "

When Shelton’s attorney asked whether it ever dawned on anyone that the DA’s office might not be getting the complete story from Patton, Taylor replied, "I hope that it did not dawn on anybody, but I think it certainly should have. I think it’s clear in retrospect we didn’t get the complete story. "

After concluding that the physical evidence just didn’t match up with Patton’s story, in November 2005, Taylor wrote orders remanding Shelton’s and Jennings’ cases “with prejudice.” As he explained, "[T]echnically speaking, a remanded case can be brought back from the dead sometimes, so to make sure a wooden stake was driven through the heart of this one I put with prejudice in the order, in both orders. " At long last, State v. Shelton was history.

Taylor’s theory is that Shelton and Jennings "were indicted on a dare” — something he said was occasionally done during the days of District Attorney Ed Peters. As he explained,

"[Y]ou get down to the area of though where . . . . the prosecutor says let’s see if I can bluff a plea out of this guy by indicting him. . . . . I’ve always had personal problems with it, to indict a case that I know deep in my heart if I have to go to trial I can’t win it. That was okay with Peters, he was willing to have his people indict on a dare. " [Emph. mine]

Among the affidavits the complaint tribunal received was Don Leland’s (twelve-page pdf), corroborating Taylor’s testimony that the DA’s office never produced the “noon version” of the release agreement and probably never saw it. Leland also addressed a suspicious facet of the dismissal of Jennings’ JPC complaint:

I have been advised by [Shelton's] attorney Andy Kilpatrick that there appeared to be [a] document produced under subpoena by the [JPC] wherein it is alleged by a Terry Grice, while supposedly investigating the complaint of James [Jennings] against Patton, interviewed me and Jackie Pierce and that we both allegedly advised Mr. Grice that we believed Patton had done nothing wrong in the matter regarding James. In response to this advice from Mr. Kilpatrick, I state the following:

a. I do not recall having ever spoken to a Terry Grice regarding the original wrongful incarceration of James and the wrongful taking from James of his summary judgment by Patton. I do state in no uncertain terms that I have never stated to anyone that I thought, regarding those matters, that Patton had done no wrong to James, or that I thought Patton had not violated any criminal or civil laws, or violated any rules of Judicial Conduct or Professional Conduct. Quite to the contrary, I have repeatedly asked Brant Brantley how Patton could get away with holding a person in jail indefinitely on misdemeanor charges without bond and requiring him to give up a civil judgment won in a totally different legal forum to get himself out of jail and also why the misdemeanor charge was never prosecuted after the summary judgment was gone. It is disingenuous, if not outright deceitful, for anyone to say that I have ever stated any opinion of the facts surrounding Patton’s treatment of James to have not been illegal; …

c. I had Brant Brantley, executive director of the Commission on Judicial Performance subpoenaed to testify at James’ anticipated criminal trial. His testimony was to be that there could be no bribery charge because James and Keith were powerless to dismiss the judicial complaint once it had been filed and no matter what Patton asked them to do, they had no power to do it in regard to the complaint. Mr. Brantley’s opinion was that there was no quid pro quo upon which a bribery charge could be sustained.

Now please join me for the finale, Part 5, to learn what the complaint tribunal and the Mississippi Bar made of this story in Reinstatement of Shelton . . .

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