(No, prolly not.) Thanks to ItsAboutTime for sharing this link to the April ABA Journal. Terry Carter’s story “Long Live the King of Torts?” carries this Editor’s note: This article went to press before Dickie Scruggs pleaded guilty March 14 to conspiring to bribe a judge in a dispute over attorney fees.
Here’s an early passage:
… He filed his first tobacco case in his hometown of Pascagoula. Traction gained in that friendly venue helped topple Big Tobacco state by state, like a long line of cigarette packs stacked as dominoes.
"We knew it would be a public relations war and a political war every bit as much as a legal fight, " Scruggs told a reporter a decade ago, explaining the "insular advantage " of bringing tobacco companies to answer in Mississippi.
Fast-forward to late February, when Scruggs sat mute in a federal courtroom up in Oxford –in the dock on federal charges of bribing a state judge last year. If convicted, he faces up to 75 years in prison.
His lawyer was arguing for a change of venue, trying to move the trial out of the state that has been so good to Scruggs.
John Keker’s argument was the mirrored opposite of Scruggs’ tobacco strategy: That Scruggs is fighting for his freedom at an insular disadvantage, in a legal fight that is every bit as much a public relations and political war. …
I’ve just started reading, but it’s long and looks interesting (especially in hindsight?). Enjoy . . .
There are so many extraordinarily large egos involved in this mess beyond Scruggs and Company. I would love to be a fly on the wall at their “strategy” sessions.