“…”It’s north of $23 million,” Welch said.

The amount includes compounded interest earned during the past 21-2 years. Attorneys fees are included, but it wasn’t immediately clear how much they are.

Attempts were unsuccessful at contacting Foradori for his reaction to the impending award.

Trial testimony revealed that when the teenager arrived at the North Gloster Street restaurant on Dec. 22, 2000, he was confronted by an employee who asked him to go outside and fight. During the fight, a second employee struck Foradori from behind and he fell, breaking his neck.

In 2005, his attorneys Joey Langston and Bo Burress of the Langston Law Firm in Booneville argued at trial that the manager on duty should not have told them to “go outside,” rather that the public is entitled to a safe and secure environment…”

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=272965&pub=1&div=News

“Judge Mills had the chance to see Joey’s skills in Foradori and that could hurt Joey worse than anything else” is a most interesting point. That had to have been a wrenching trial, but I wish I’d seen some of it myself.

The Pizza Hut case settled for upwards of 10 million with no judge involved. Also justified.

One of the saddest factors is not only that Joey will never wow another jury but that folks will assume that every jury he wowwed was bought. Simply not true.

And in my opinion, you could put Joey and Dickie’s millions together and not have enough to taint Judge Mills because there is no amount that would do that.

Judge Mills is as honest a jurist as exists. If he had a conflict he would recuse himself before the motion was even brought up.

As someone pointed out, most lawyers and judges in the Northern District are known to one another. That said, I don’t think Judge Mills and Joey were ever friendly or even in the same social circles.

Judge Mills had the chance to see Joey’s skills in Foradori and that could hurt Joey worse than anything else.