“Home cooking” in the tobacco cases (by NMC)

This Washington Post story about the tobacco settlements (mentioned in comments by MississippiLawyer) makes an interesting read in light of recent events. First, there is the description of the Trent Lott-Dickie Scruggs relationship, and how Scruggs called on Lott at a critical moment in the negotiations. Then there’s this. The story notes that Scruggs and his group “would make sure the battle stayed on their home turf – a strategy Scruggs called “home cookin’.” And then it describes how they gave the tobacco companies home cooking:

Every third Tuesday each month, [the trial judge]… heard tobacco motions. Industry lawyers flew in from around the country to sit on plastic chairs and await their turn to step up to a makeshift lectern to argue their points. [The judge]… rarely asked questions, and often simply left without a word.

The tobacco lawyers didn’t have a clue what was on the judge’s mind until they received his rulings in the mail. They were almost all one-sentence statements and read the same way: overruling the industry and sustaining the state.

“Our jaws would drop,” said one industry lawyer. “We’d pick up the phone and say, ‘What in the hell is he up to?’ ” Then they would report the bad news to their tobacco clients – Scruggs had won again.

Cigarette executives say the industry’s legions of big-city litigators were flummoxed by the Mississippi case. “These $500-an-hour company lawyers didn’t understand small southern towns,” said one tobacco industry attorney. “They were bamboozled.”

History was being made by an overworked, inexperienced judge without a law clerk, who also kept up his full docket of probate disputes, land squabbles and juvenile delinquency cases. And the industry’s luck didn’t improve when it appealed Myers’s rulings to higher courts.

When on March 13, 1997, the Mississippi Supreme Court found against the industry on every motion – including Fordice’s assertion that Moore had no authority to file the suit – Philip Morris’s stock sank 8 percent.

 

I’ll note here that the rulings did get affirmed by the Mississippi Supreme Court. But the echoes are still interesting.

UMATTY points out in comments that the whole docket in the tobacco litigation is available online through Delta Computers’ Jackson County Chancery Court docket. Yes, it is–here is the tobacco litigation docket itself. Far too much for me to page through, but there you have it.

Here, here’s what I mean . . .

A few days ago, I had me a rant about Bill and Hillary Clinton as members in too-good standing of The Money Party, which I described as 

people who use money interchangeably with power — people like Dickie Scruggs, for whom the border between money and power has ceased to exist. U.S. v. Scruggs has come about not because the U.S. Attorney in ND Miss is politically motivated (as the U.S. Attorney in ND Ala clearly is) but because Dickie Scruggs and a few others just could not get enough.

Those people are the bane of our existence. Dick Cheney is one of them. Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia is one of them. Bill and Hillary Clinton are two of them (see this post from early October). Others’ names will come readily to all our minds, whatever our politics.

What they actually want is the product of money and power: control — and never, never one whiff of accountability. They’re the GOBs on global scale, working through shadowy agents like P.L. Blake and Ahmad Chalabi to express their sick mania for control.

Now, just in time for Super Tuesday, I rest my case.

lotus

Scruggs Deposition Fight coming to a boil (by NMC)

State Farm has filed an emergency motion to compel the deposition of Dickie Scruggs and Scruggs has filed a motion to quash, all filed in the Northern District federal court where Scruggs resides and where State Farm is attempting to force the deposition for tomorrow. The first Scruggs argument seems risible– that the deposition notice and subpoena are a nullity because the Southern District court has no jurisdiction (based on Hood’s arguments that the southern district court has not yet bought int0). More later when I’ve time to absorb.

The motions are assigned to Chief Judge Mills.

Update: And Judge Mills has set it for hearing, tomorrow, February 1, at his courtroom in Oxford at 2:00 PM. H/t to Curious for the heads up in comments below.

Various Scruggs-related data points in the news (by NMC)

The NE Daily Journal picks up the story about Joey Langston selling his ski lodge.

David Rossmiller describes (read down) State Farm serving a subpoena in the State Farm v. Hood case on an assistant attorney general as she leaves through the parking garage.

The Clarion Ledger runs with an AP story about the fight over a Scruggs deposition in State Farm v. Hood. (AP? they don’t have a reporter on this beat? Maybe that’s why Jerry Mitchell didn’t know that the Scruggs case will have an impact on the Katrina case). The story includes posturing by both State Farm and Jim Hood (who has generally been real quiet here lately).

Jerry Mitchell does Scruggs A-Z on Mississippi Public Radio (by NMC)

They are promoting this for 8:30 this morning (now!), and you can listen in here I think.

Update:

It was pretty much Scruggs for Dummies. The most remarkable thing he said was wrong:

Reporter : Tell us how the Katrina litigation is effected by all of this.

Mitchell: It’s not.

Will someone please tell him State Farm v. Hood and the whole flap about whether Scruggs will be made to testify and take the Fifth, and whether that can be used against Jim Hood. Yeah, the cases are still moving along but the (-S)KG is sailing along without the guy who was at least to the public used to be sailing the ship. I’m sure it would hurt Scruggs’s heart to think that he didn’t matter there.

Well, as long as NMC’s a-bleggin’ . . .

. . . I reckon I can too.

I’m deep into research on a new story-line for us, one that doesn’t involve Dickie Scruggs but does feature Ed Peters. And in this tale, the phrase “indict on a dare” has arisen. Well, NMC and I have diligently searched the whole Web for another occurrence of that phrase – but we’ve come up with bupkes.

So here’s my bleg: Have you ever heard talk of “indicting on a dare” before? If so, who-where-and-when? (If you’ve got something you’d rather not discuss on-blog, please use my addy at top-right of this page to tattle.) 

Thankers,

lotus

A bleg to the Folo community (by NMC)

(Bleg meaning a beg by a blogger). I’m just another member of the Folo community, but have become (I think and hope) an important conduit for information. It’s now become a veritable flood– I feel like someone having a fire hose spraying on his forehead. And, believe it or not, I have an actual real life in which I’m not NMC!

So I’m going to talk about some of the stuff I have in front of me, and ask what ya’ll would like to hear about first.

• There’s the transcript linked by Rossmiller, in which Judge DeLaughter suddenly fishtales and rejects the masters ruling. This is a key document in this mess, and involves major stuff I haven’t been able to get to yet (explaining a ruling by federal Judge Lee about why Scruggs might have owed tobacco fees to Wilson) and full of interesting detail (the lawyer talking for Scruggs the whole time in this late 2006 hearing is the one-and-only Tim Balducci, who Scruggs’s current lawyers seem to think hardly know him). I think by having immersed myself in this mess so much I can provide some insight here.
• Then there’s the second motion in Eaton Corp. v. Frisby and further explanations about the Peters/Delaughter relationship arrising from that.
• And then there’s the seemingly constant steam of news and tips we want to keep ya’ll hearing about.

So. Which should be the focus, first? I think all are worthwhile, and while take seriously a consensus from the Folo community about what ya’ll might want to hear first.

And while I’m at it: If anyone has ANY TIPS TO SEND or any original documents we can fold into our blogging, PULEEZE write us in the addresses posted on the right.

Judge Biggers says “No!” a third time to Ken Coghlan (by NMC)

Judge Biggers denied the Scruggs request that Ken Coghlan join the defense team. The order is interesting for those following this question. The largest piece of news is about the other crime evidence the government has noted they intend to use. The court notes that Langston has

agreed to testify in the present case against defendant Richard Scruggs about Langston’s knowledge of alleged prior similar bad acts by Scruggs as providd by Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The Langston plea was initially under seal, thus, no record of the matter was before the undersigned district judge when Mr. Farese moved to withdraw as counsel for Zachary Scruggs.

This confirms what we’d already guessed– that the “other crime” evidence will at least in part come from Langston.

Smokin’!

The CLE seminar that NMC yesterday described as “might be, um, interesting” . . . might not be all that. folo has just received the following statement, direct from Merkel & Cocke:

“Out of respect for the sponsoring organization and the legal profession, Charlie Merkel has withdrawn from participation in the Masters In Trial seminar lest his appearance on the program with Judge DeLaughter be turned into an unseemly spectacle or the feigned deference he would be obliged to show the judge in even a mock trial might be misinterpreted as condonation of the judge’s purported conduct.” 

lotus

Wilson v. Scruggs: The day Judge DeLaughter rejected the special master’s ruling (by NMC)

In the Langston plea hearing, the government stated that Ed Peters got Bobby DeLaughter to reject the special master’s recommendation in Wilson v. Scruggs. David Rossmiller has obtained a 181 page transcript of a hearing in which Judge DeLaughter announced that decision. You can find it linked to on his post.

I am sure there is much of very great interest there. I will read it and report back as soon as I can.

That case is under seal and the file itself has been scooped up by a federal subpoena, so not much in the way of original documents have surfaced from it (and it’s not that we haven’t tried!).