folo

A glance at the court file in Eaton Corp. v. Frisby and there’s lots to report.

Recall a flurry posts here and elsewhere, beginning with an account from Kingfish of Jackson Jambalya of a process server showing up at Ed Peters’s home and dropping a subpoena on the ground.

A brief reminder: Eaton is one of at least three cases widely reported to be under investigation concerning Ed Peters’s relationship with Judge DeLaughter, all of which surfaced in the wake of the first guilty pleas in the Scruggs cases. Ed Peters is the former District Attorney and mentor to Judge DeLaughter, who was rumored to be able to work magic in cases before the judge.

One party who thinks itself a possible victim of this magic, the Frisby side in the Eaton Corp. v. Frisby case, has subpoenaed Peters about the relationship. Ed Peters’s lawyer Cynthia Stewart has filed a motion to quash the subpoena, which contains an account of the effort to serve process on Mr. Peters, some of which squares with the earlier accounts from Kingfish and some not– we have the documents thrown on the ground but a certain ambiguity as to whether he was there, and it seems to have all occurred late Thursday and not on Friday:

Late in the evening on the 22nd day of May, 2008, an unknown individual threw a document on the property of Ed Peters that appeared to be a deposition subpoena requiring the production of a large number of documents. … There was no contact with Mr. Peters. … This follows on the heels of several efforts to make unauthorized service of process on the undersigned counsel for Mr. Peters… [although she] has informed opposing counsel that, after she returned from a trip [to her daughter's graduation] … she would meet with her client and once authorized, agree to accept process on behalf of her client. The meeting with Mr. Peters was delayed until today [May 23rd], due to [illness]…

The subpoena is included (it is a document production subpoena and not a deposition subpoena); it was issued May 2nd, suggesting that Peters has been a little hard to find, and demands production on May 23rd at 10:00 AM. It is unusual in that it refers to Judge DeLaughter almost entirely as “Bobby DeLaughter” with no honorific. It asks for

• Documents between Peters or “Eaton-related …Persons with Bobby DeLaughter concerning any actual or possible transfer of anything of value (including without limitation, payments, compensation, gifts, loans… property sales… future compensation.. appointment to any position…”
• Documents reflecting communications between Peters and DeLaughter about the Eaton matter, or, since January 1, 2006, about anything, but particularly about “any case pending before Bobby DeLaughter… in which no representative of the other parties participated.”
• Documents relating to the Wilson v. Scruggs case.
• Opinions and orders (including drafts) shown to Peters or any Eaton-related persons relating to the Eaton case, including those shown to DeLaughter, other than those all parties received at the same time. They make clear they want drafts, and want the documents in electronic form with all metadata.
• Documents relating to the removal of Jack Dunbar as Special Master or the appointment of Larry Latham as Special Master, including those relating to communications with Latham or his staff.
• Documents relating to any association or relationship between Peters and Mike Allred in any case before DeLaughter, and records of communications between them.
• Documents with Peters’s phones, including his cell phone.
• Document showing addresses where Peters “has spent more than seven nights since January 1, 2008, including any fishing camps, vacation homes, relatives or friends’ residences.”
• Documents provided to government agencies in any investigation relating to DeLaughter “including statements or proffers.”

So here’s the Peters motion to quash and here’s the [link later].

As the guy with the vegematic used to say “But wait! There’s more!” (some actually more newsy than the subpoenas, and I may not get to all of it tonight…)