folo

In an ongoing series, I’ve been commenting on the Mississippi Supreme Court’s decisions since the advent of new members, with a particular focus on divided opinions.  I’ve missed two decisions lists, partly because they are so eventful. Watch for future comment on them. In the meantime, today’s list has only one opinion. It’s divided (8-1, with a majority opinion by Kitchens, a dissent by Waller, Graves concurring but neither joining nor explaining, and Pierce offering a short clear explanation why he concurs).  Without saying more I’ll just note that this one seems clearly right to me, but perhaps I’m biased. I’ll leave more detailed comments to others.

Prior posts in this series describe all but two of this year’s decisions lists so far (I’ll catch those soon). They can be found in order of posting here and here and here.

[Read more →]

“The thing with Thomas was he was one of the most active judges, but he would abuse the privileges,” Cochran said.

I’m really not sure that’s how I would have worded that if I were Sheriff Cochran.

It seems that Mobile’s jail and courts had an extremely casual arrangement whereby judges could check out prisoners at a whim, and one of the judges, Herman Thomas, took advantage of this system to check out young men for sessions of secret paddling and a lot else in his offices and even about town (e.g., erstwhile jail inmates more than once turned up at police stops driving one of Judge Thomas’s cars).

There were hints and more of these goings-on when Thomas resigned from the bench in 2007 in the midst of an investigation by the state panel disciplining judges, and some snickering on a self-styled legal tabloid. In an affidavit in an unsuccessful suit against Thomas, one witness had said that Thomas was “constantly” driving up his block to pick up a neighbor, who told the witness “that as long as he plays the sex game with Judge Thomas, he wouldn’t have to worry about staying in jail.”

A lawyer in Mobile working up a criminal case involving people with connections to Thomas began hearing from witnesses who talked about Thomas trading (or offering to trade) favors in criminal cases for sex, and the lawyer went from there obsessively investigating and collecting further examples, turning them over to the prosecutors.  The local alternative newspaper, Lagniappe, ran a story about that and about the apparent failure of prosecuting authorities to pursue this.

A follow-up story describes some of Thomas’s activities once he left the bench:

After his suspension from the bench two years ago …Thomas appears to have become even more involved in mentoring through the Phoenix Program, which is designed to help at-risk students who are in danger of dropping out of school or in long-term suspension [and is] … run by the 100 Black Men of Greater Mobile, Inc., a group dedicated to the idea of making a positive difference in the lives of African-American youth. The program is run by 100 Black Men using federal and local funds that come through the Mobile County School System. Thomas is listed as a member of 100 Black Men’s board of directors.

According to former Mobile County School Superintendent Harold Dodge, Thomas had always been active with the Phoenix Program, but became even more so after his suspension. … The program includes kids from sixth through 12th grades.

“Herman was an outstanding mentor,” Dodge said. “He would check on the kids at all times of the day.”

I’ll bet.

These stories have all kinds of intimations that the power structure in Mobile is protecting Thomas for fear of what might be revealed if Thomas were actually prosecuted.

After he resigned, another Mobile judge banned Thomas from his courtroom with an order that read in part “Thomas violated the provisions of Section 34-3-20(1) Code of Alabama (1975) in that he used his office to threaten criminal defendants with jail time, penitentiary time and probation revocations if they did not engage in sexual acts with him,” and had attached to it a CD containing testimony of inmates Thomas had abused, with instructions that the CD was to only be listened to by Judge Thomas. Judge Thomas has a lawyer who intends to take this up with the Alabama Supreme Court, noting that Judge Thomas has a right to be heard before his right to practice law is taken away.

The obvious answer is a show-cause order directed at Thomas. Give him some due process. That should stir things up.

[Read more →]

Paul Quinn at the Clarion Ledger is reporting that Zach went back to the halfway house in Tupelo as of noon today:

Zach Scruggs was released from the Lafayette County Detention Center Monday back to a Tupelo halfway house following a Bureau of Prisons investigation about whether he violated any rules. 
The Bureau of Prisons investigated what route Scruggs took from the prison as well as what he did while on the trip.

Quinn’s report makes clear that no one connected to either the Bureau of Prisons or Scruggs really wants to talk about this any more.

[Read more →]

Folks will recall the post with a Time Magazine photo depicting the president’s luggage being carried off Air Force One, with a logo quite familiar to Oxford area residents. Here’s how it happened…

H/t to Paul Quinn. The photo is from the University of Mississippi web site.

[Read more →]

Thanks to her handy math degrees from MUW and State, Laura Pendergest-Holt was truly prepared for the work she was to do at Stanford Financial.

Lotus linked in comments an article from Reuters about Pendergest-Holt’s meteoric and apparently inexplicable rise (well, inexplicable given normal qualifications, although the article notes that these “explanations” for her success– that she met James Davis at church, didn’t have the background to challenge Davis or Allen Stanford, and was sufficiently photogenic– tall too!– that Stanford included her photo in their financial reports.  I thought the business about Davis being her “visionary mentor” was about him having the vision to send her to the wolves at the SEC instead of going himself, but maybe she meant “visionary” more literally than I took it) has this to say about her job responsibilities at Stanford:

In one instance the regulators asked her about her role in preparing the Stanford International Bank quarterly report. She replied it was her job to edit the report, checking the report’s pie charts “to make sure they equal 100.”

It’s great having those math majors around, isn’t it?

[Read more →]

Interesting story on Bloomberg about the interrelations of the folks at the top of Stanford:

Stanford, 58, a graduate of Baylor University, a Baptist school in Waco, Texas, recruited his college roommate James Davis, 60, as his chief financial officer. Davis, in turn, brought in Chief Investment Officer Laura Pendergest-Holt, 35, whom he met at First Baptist Church in Baldwyn, Mississippi, where he was a Sunday school teacher, according to Jim Holt, Pendergest-Holt’s husband….

Religion was also a part of the boardroom culture at Stanford. Davis, based in Memphis, Tennessee, would routinely clasp the shoulders of employees, look them in the eyes and pray for them, according to one former executive. Another former staffer said Davis always opened meetings in the office with a prayer. …

Pendergest-Holt’s cousin Heather Sheppard is an “equity specialist” at the company and was Davis’s secretary, Sheppard said in an interview. Davis’s son, Zack, was also a “global equity specialist” working out of the Memphis office, according to his online profile and former employees. Zack Davis didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.

Folks in comments are suggesting that Davis was really close to both Pengergast-Holt and Sheppard. The same things are being hinted at out there on the web.

[Read more →]

Scott Barretta has just told me that his friend, blues singer and civil rights activist Willie King of Prairie Point, Alabama (just across the Mississippi state line south of Columbus) has died of a heart attack. This was unexpected, and I’m sad about the loss to both the blues community and the people around Prairie Point who benefited from his activism.

He had an annual festival in June at Freedom Creek. You can see him in one of the blues documentaries Scorcese filmed and hear him, among other places, on recordings by Living Blues cofounder Jim O’Neal. Here’s him doing a song by one of his great musical heroes, Howlin Wolf, at the juke near Prairie Point, where he used to perform every Sunday.

I’ll post more about Willie King later.

[Read more →]

(from Chamoun’s Rest Haven in Clarksdale and my iPhone)

[Read more →]

Here’s the indictment against Courtney Stadd in the Mississippi State-NASA earmark consultant case. It’s fascinating reading, and raises real questions about what the folks at Mississippi State understood Stadd was up to– they paid an invoice from him for consulting work that was dated for a period he had not done work, covering up that what he’d done was steer to them earmark funds appropriated to NASA, while he was working at NASA. It’s made clear that this all involved funding from an earmark, and Senator Cochran’s name is directly invoked on the subject of whether and how the earmarks were to go to institutions in Mississippi.

Further digging may be in order about all this. Here’s Stadd’s bio from a conference.

h/t Duckweedpond.

[Read more →]

Is there any out-of-office Democratic politician in Jackson who failed to qualify for the city elections down there?

We have a situation here that may give more meaning to the “embarrasment” part of the phrase embarrasment of riches.  The Clarion Ledger notes that the number of candiates (18!) is unprecedented, and provides a list:

Democrats
Dorothy “Dot” Benford
Marshand K. Crisler
Eddie J. Fair
Joyce Harper
John Horhn
Harvey Johnson
Robert L. Johnson
John H. Jones Jr.
Frank E. Melton (i)
Faye Peterson
Brenda Scott
Jabari A. Toins

Republicans
George Owen Lambus
Walter R. Slone Sr.

Independents
Robert Amos
David L. Archie
Charlotte Reeves
Rick Whitlow

Fourteen qualified in Ward 6!  A total of 59 candidates qualified for 8 slots! It’s going to be a circus! If they allow four minutes to each candidate total a debate takes 4 hours!

[Read more →]