Jerry Mitchell retells yesterday in Oxford

In fine folo tradition, jim starts our day off with a tip on Jerry Mitchell’s story in the Clarion-Ledger, Scruggs prosecutors want Lott testimony:

OXFORD — Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott will testify against his brother-in-law, noted lawyer Dickie Scruggs, at his upcoming judicial bribery trial – if federal prosecutors get their wish.

And U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran could be called as a defense witness.

That’s because prosecutors want to use evidence of other alleged “bad acts” by Scruggs at his March 31 trial – specifically an alleged Hinds County bribery scheme in 2006 involving Scruggs, Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter and others.

“That case is under active investigation of the Public Integrity Division of the Justice Department as we speak,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Dawson said in a hearing Thursday. …

Jerry recounts Tom Dawson’s statement that Lott isn’t a target, followed by Lott-aide Bret Boyles’ whew that “Lott’s office agrees with Tom Dawson’s comment.” Then he recalls Joey Langston’s guilty plea to scheming to get DeLaughter to rule in Dickie’s favor in Wilson v. Scruggs by telling him he’d be nominated for a federal judgeship.

In order to influence DeLaughter, Langston said he initially paid $50,000 in cash to DeLaughter’s close friend and former boss, one-time District Attorney Ed Peters.

Peters received that cash in an envelope and was told the cash wouldn’t be reported to the IRS, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Norman said in Thursday’s hearing.

(So add tax-evasion to Ed Peters’ tab . . . )

Those involved in the scheme “wanted Bobby DeLaughter to … shade the law,” Norman said. “There was every reason to believe the Scruggs law firm would prevail in both cases, but that wasn’t good enough. They had to have an edge.” …

Scruggs’ lawyer, John Keker of San Francisco, suggested Thursday this scheme was something [Tim] Balducci and Langston “cooked up” on their own and that Scruggs knew nothing about this.

With Keker arguing that introducing all this DeLaughter-bribing stuff at trial will “swamp the case,” confuse jurors, and prejudice the defense, the prosecutors apparently teeheed that they need only a little bit of testimony from Lott, Langston, and Balducci. So then Keker said he would call Thad Cochran, Peters, DeLaughter, and “an unnamed lawyer who nominated DeLaughter for the federal bench.” (“Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” being his theory of case-complication, I guess.) Whatever,

Keker said the facts suggest Scruggs and DeLaughter did nothing wrong. “Judge DeLaughter did an excellent job. It was a contract case,” he said. “Wilson wasn’t owed any more money.”

Lott lacked the power to nominate DeLaughter, Keker said. “Recommending a good judge to the federal bench is not a crime.”

In insolation, no, it isn’t. But throw in testimony and documentary evidence that either Dickie Scruggs or Tim Balducci or both were writing DeLaughter’s opinions for him and passing them back and forth via paid-off Ed Peters . . .

Anyhow, Jerry concludes with a vignette of Frank Trapp (Sid Backstrom’s lawyer) “wav[ing] recent copies of The Clarion-Ledger, saying defendants are battling a ‘tsunami of ill will’ and negative publicity.”

When the judge asked where the trial should be held, Keker offered a suggestion.

“Let’s go to New Orleans,” he said. “There are a lot of distractions, and they need the business.”

Knowing how much he enjoys blogging from some café in the Quahtah, I do grieve for NMC that that one didn’t fly . . .