I remember a former AG joking about my “shady deals”.  I told him all my “shady deals” were legitimate.  Well, mine still are.

A political question for y’all:  60 days ago, just after the November elections, Attorney General Jim Hood was being hailed in many quarters as being a leading candidate for Governor from the Democratic side. 

How many here really believe that Hood stands a chance to win a state-wide for Governor in 2011 against a well financed Republican 60 days later?

RD… thank you for giving me something to have sweet dreams about tonight.

A good thought indeed

Good letter.  All that’s left is to pass the offering plate and give an altar call.

How about a rephrasing:

First, how many of y’all think that Jim Hood will be in office in 2011?  If you answered yes he will be in office, then how many amongst you think that Jim Hood would win a contested contest for Governor in 2011?

Seems to me that Hood will be the easy target for these guys, i.e. Balducci, Langston, etc., to roll on.  None of these guys are going to lose any sleep sacrificing Hood to the Feds.  In the grand scheme Hood is a nobody.  He is the chum you throw over to get the bigger Mike Moore fish.  Actions speak louder than words and Jimmy has gone mute.  IMO, Hood is a goner and he knows it.

Hi folks, a new member here, I think JimHood’s a gonner to. Cowboy55

Also, let’s see how many democrats really stand up and support Jim Hood, when all this come’s out. Cowboy55

I would not be surprised to see a 3 man huddle comprised of McCoy, Stevie ‘dancin bear’ Holland and Hood in some dark room in South Jxn. And, I can see Hood asking, “Tell me again how you got Speakah.” Can you imagine how all this is impacting the State Legislature?

Speaking of sweet dreams, would this be a federal lockup or a state cell that Hood might occupy, worst case scenario? I’m having visions of that mullet and the battle among cell mates as to who will get to ‘hold onto it’ first.

I’d say we’re a long way off from that.  But I will say this.  This whole deal so fundamentally messes with the justice system that it has to be fixed.  Our adversarial system of legal representation depends, at the end of the day, in opposing counsel being able to trust at the very least that the other attorney, the judges or anyone else is “not on the take” and is serving the interest of justice.  If you don’t have that basic trust, it basically turns into a street fight.

I know a lot of lawyers out there right now are replaying legal fights in the last decade or so and thinking “was that judge or that lawyer on the take”?  It’s poison for the system and ultimately affects us all in longer, drawn out legal fights, which lead to the inability to get court time to resolve disputes.

At the end of the day, it’s the little guy who gets shafted if we don’t fix this right now.

But, reality has it that even though you might run the snake-oil salesman out of town with his wagon of bottles, next year another wagon will roll into town.

As long as there is sucha thing as the greenback-dollar, we will have snake-oil salesmen, whores and crooks.

How do we ‘fix it’? Maybe a lie detector test for all officers of the court along with the swearing in of witnesses.

Hello, everyone. I have been hearing about this site on Supertalk for a while now and just visited it today.

The really sad thing about this entire mess is that we will likely never know just how many innocent people have been hurt by the corruption of these judges and lawyers. We know the FBI won’t uncover everything but perhaps it will scare the ones who don’t get nailed this time around.

We should have a special sentencing guideline for corrupt judges, lawyers and cops because they are our vehicle to justice and should be held to a higher standard.

Open Letter to Alan Lange:

Alan,

I understand your willingness to put pressure on Jim Hood.  However, no amount of pressure that a Mississippi blogger could exude, will have any influence on the Attorney General.

If I were you, I would have written an open letter to the Clarion Ledger.  Or perhaps you could create a webpage that was completely dedicated to AG Hood and his connections with Scruggs, et. al.

However, when the last dog dies, I still do not see any considerable link to the AG.  Also, you can not possibly expect an individual to come out guns blazing against his friends, if in fact, the feds are already doing so.

Remember this Alan…

“Politics and crime; they are the same thing.”

-Michael Corleone, The Godfather Part III

If you think an open letter to the AG is farting in a whirlwind, try writing an open letter to the Clarion Ledger. The only letters that get posted, uncut, and run more than 300 words are the ones eminating with Hampton’s liberal friends, e.g. the professors at Millsaps and Belhaven, folks like Haskel Stringer and those who kiss the ring of Bill Minor with regularity.

Alan’s letter is right where it will do the most good. This site is getting read far and wide and thank goodness for copy and paste.

That warriorboy does not see a link to Hood is no surprise. Hell, last week he didn’t see a link to Langston or Patterson.

Warrior is a good ole boy. Don’t worry about voting for COngress. He and his friends have made sure that their boy Landrum gets elected. Don’t worry about corruption, you let the newspaper handle it. Nice to see some people haven’t changed since the 50’s.

If you don’t think people are reading this web site, you are crazy.  Everyone I run into is reading it.  And, a lot of them are friends with Hood, Scruggs, Moore, and a lot of the others.

That letter made it to the addresse, have no doubt.

Lawdoc; who suggested that?

LawDoc- Landrum isn’t my boy; just the next Congressman.

Don D- Of course I see a link, but no link that will get AG Hood in trouble.

When I say the Clarion Ledger, I mean, an open letter to Sid Salter concerning Hood’s lack of involvement...Not the Clarion Ledger per se, you idiot.

You kids get rowled up pretty easy…

The people at Hoods office who are influential, are already desensitized to Alan’s rants about Hood.  Alan’s article will have ZERO effect on ANY action of Jim Hood and if you think it will, then you, LAWDOCTOR1960 are the crazy one.

"When I say the Clarion Ledger, I mean, an open letter to Sid Salter concerning Hood’s lack of involvement...Not the Clarion Ledger per se, you idiot.”

Pardon me. Since I don’t know you, I assumed you meant what you said and you said an open letter to the Clarion Ledger, not Sid Salter.........you moron.

“The people at Hoods office who are influential, are already desensitized to Alan’s rants about Hood.  Alan’s article will have ZERO effect on ANY action of Jim Hood and if you think it will, then you, LAWDOCTOR1960 are the crazy one.”

I can’t speak for Alan, but, even the slowest turtle in the race can figure out that his letter is made to make Hood nervous and educate the populace as to the antics and misfeasance of the AG, not to nudge him into action.

And you’re right about Hood’s staff being desensitized to the needs of the people of Mississippi. I congratulate you for arriving so quickly at that conclusion.

However, I appreciate this site and enjoy having fun with the back and forth banter.

Do you really think Hood is going to do anything regarding this matter?

Do you really think Hood is doing anything illegal?

Do you really think that, Hood is going to not get re-elected if he desires to, considering the fact that he got more votes than Haley Barbour?

Please answer these questions, my most formidable friend.

Also, why don’t you focus your efforts on getting Michael Guest to run for AG instead of beating a dead horse with AG Hood.  Guest is the only person that can beat Hood.  Seriously.

Alan, get off your rear and start lobbying Guest to run for AG.

I thought saying that writing an open letter to Jim Hood and putting it in the CL would do more good than putting in on YP was implying that it would reach more people that way, including Hood, ergo, no one was reading this site.

I was merely rebutting that notion, but if that was not the notion, I apologize.

And, mswarrior, if you think politicians don’t live, breathe, and hang, on every word written about them, from whatever source, that tells me you have never worked for an elected official.

our traffic counters tell us otherwise. The state servers are good for more than a few hits every day.

How many assholes we got on this ship, anyhow?

You were right on, Alan: after taking a total pass on the biggest local story in living memory, the JFP has finally found a point of entry. It’s a slam of Ed Peters, naturally, with the insinuation that this news, had it come before the 2007 elections, would have reversed the resluts of the D.A. election. Sure.

Laughing-- That would be one counting you

Had this broken earlier, I am betting there would have been a change in the results of some elections.  Not sure if it would have been on the Hinds DA race, but am guessing Al Hopkins is feeling somewhat vindicated for trying to raise some of the issues he presented in his campaign.

Jim?  Jim?  Conway?  Bueller?  Bueller??  Anyone??? 

Again, the silence is deafening!!

Yes, it probably would have changed some elections, but at the same time US Attorney Jim Greenlee had to weigh that possibility against the risk that his actions would have been made to look political because of the pre-election timing.

In as much, there would have been a real possibility that the jury pool would have had the political nature, whether real or imagined, in the back of their minds.

If he had obtained all the evidence that he would have needed to take the issues to the grand jury for indictments prior to the November elections, which I’m a bit skepitcal he did based on the early November Balducci issues, then Greenlee made an astute call by waiting.

Did Patterson plead guilty?

No question it was for the greater good.

Yes, Patterson pled.

Ms Warrior, Patterson pleading guilty is like . . . so . . . two hours ago.

LOL Alan!  Well what do yall think his son’s legal career will look like now?  Will his son be able to get any cases in Mississippi now?  Will he ever be able to break the albatros his father has bestowed upon his neck?  What say you?

I wonder if the Feds will lean heavy on Dickie and tell him, “Hey, we’ll let Zach off easy if you can tell us how _____ was involved.”

(If in fact he can roll on anybody...)

Now that we know Dickie’s M.O., let’s re-visit his relationship with convicted bribester P.L. Blake.  According to Dickie’s own deposition testimony, he funneled $10 million to P.L. (via newly-minted bribester Joey Langston) between August 17, 1998 and April 9, 1999.

So what exactly was going on in Dickie’s world back then?  Well, Big Tobacco had agreed to pay $206 billion to settle all of the tobacco cases in a Multi-State Agreement, but the legal fees were still to be decided.  The parties agreed to form something called the Tobacco Fee Arbitration Panel, based in Boston, to resolve that little question. 

On July 30, 1999 (three short months after Dickie funneled the final installment on the mysterious $10 million payment to P.L.), the Tobacco Fee Arbitration Panel voted to award Dickie and his cronies $1.4 billion.

And if you think the timing is suspicious, go back to the first article linked above and note one minor detail.  The five member Tobacco Arbitration includes one very familiar name – Jack Dunbar of Oxford, Mississippi.

That would be the same Jack Dunbar who originally represented Dickie in his fee dispute with Attorneys Luckey and Wilson.  You know, the case where Joey has now pleaded guilty to trying to bribe the judge. 

In Jack’s defense, he only defended Dickie until the Special Master recommended Dickie pay a fat fee to Wilson and Luckey, and then Dickie replaced him with Joey.  In other words, it’s conceivable that Dickie ditched Jack precisely because he refused to do the kind of dirty tricks Joey was willing to perform.  Still, the mysterious $10 million payment to P.L. followed shortly thereafter by the unprecedented $1.4 billion fee award, coupled with Jack’s position on the panel and later his own representation of Dickie, raises questions which must be answered.

hmmm...had a thought.......

in the early litigation involving farming out the lawsuits to private attorneys, wasn’t Pete Johnson involved somehow?

Yes, I recall in about 1999 there was some fee dispute between Scrugg and Pete Johnson regarding tobacco as well.

you guys could use a break from all this legal stuff.

Here ya go:

http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/messagetopic.asp?p=6835342

You really have to go back and read Dickie’s deposition now.  Here are a couple of real gems:

“He [Blake] obviously didn’t disclose his methods and sources, as the term is now used, but he knew the key people in various congressional offices in 1996 when political resolution of this started looking promising, and it was very helpful providing the names of these people and backgrounds on them . . . .”

And here’s my favorite:

“They [Big Tobacco] had cork in their bats, and we were trying to meet the challenge . . . .”

Here is a hypothetical question.

If Johnny Jones had simply accepted the pennies on the dollar that the SKG offered him rather than hiring Grady Tollison to file a fee lawsuit, would any of this mess have surfaced?

DH

Well, I guess all I have to do is say it and it happens.

From Jim Hood in the Legal Newsline Interview.

“Due to Mr. Langston’s past representation of this office, it could create an appearance of impropriety for our office to participate in a potential state prosecution of this case.

Un-freaking-believable.

GET A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR!

I

I am still not convinced that Diaz (acceptor of large amounts of money from Scruggs) is still out of the picture on all of this.

In a calculated speech with words chosen most carefully, Hood breaks wind and says absolutely nothing. Well, he’s just too busy with the ‘special election’ and leaning on DeLaghter while struggling to pull himself out of this consuming ‘quicksand’ which surrounds him.

Oh, the irony of it all.

Really, a special prosecutor from the state, would just get in the way at this point (and, given what the federal authorities working on this have uncovered so far, would probably be trusted about as far as they could throw him ).

As much as it pains me to say this, if this mess is ever going to be cleaned up, it is going to have to be the feds doing it. 

And, if there is a bigger waste of money going, than Hood’s Public Integrity Division, someone will have to tell me what it is.

Lawdoctor,
I think John Kitchens or Thomas Zebert could do it and be trusted.

Given the skepticism that most have of lawyers, and Hood, at this point, any independent special prosecutor that Hood would/could appoint would be attacked by the blogging public and rendered useless by the US Attorney’s office, which wouldn’t want that person in their way.  The US Attorney’s office and investigators would probably not want to risk the future of their investigation by sharing information with anyone outside their circle, that meaning the AG’s office or any special investigator that the AG appointed.

If I were to advise Hood (which he’d never ask for), I’d advise him to...well, we’ll just let him figure it out for himself.

Kitchens used to run Mike Moore’s Public Integrity Division before he was a judge.  That might give him a conflict of interest in the feds’ eyes if the investigation started running that way.

And, that’s their problem.  Many of them are either from north Mississippi (the AUSA’s) or from out of state (the FBI agents).  They know that there are lots of business and personal relationships between Mississippi lawyers that they don’t know about.

An independent state investigation of this stuff, while the federal one is ongoing, is a non-starter.  In the worst scenario, it could even be viewed as an attempt to obstruct the federal investigation.  I think their veiwpoint would be that, “This stuff has been going on for many years, and no one in the state stepped up, why are you doing it now?”.

Here’s how I view the notion of a special prosecutor on the state’s payroll:

Goober has been tending to your car for at least five years. He knows it inside and out, it’s pings and rattles and what aftermarket features you’ve added. He even watched you cut the catalytic converter out and run a straight pipe.

You’re fairly well fed up with Goober’s inability to diagnose and fix stuff and you realize he spends all of his time changing out wiper blades and fiddling with his tire pressure gauge and once he was in a Mount Pilot made commercial for Floyds Barber Shop, drivin’ his old truck with a toothy grin.

You finally get your prize towed to a dealership where they’ve got all manner of guys who have attended far away training, got some certificates on the shop wall and their names on their pockets. Goober has never had a shirt with his name stitched on the pocket.

The pros are cranking out diagnoses day and night, giving you the bad news, turning wrenches and clickin’ buttons on computer stuff, runnin’ you a tab.

Here comes Goober ‘round the corner with a friend. His friend has a pocket protector, tape on his glasses nose-piece, a new Sears wranch and boots straight out of the travelin’ steel-toe truck. Stitched on his shirt it says, “Hello, I’m Your Speshul Prosekuter”.

In the background you hear the faint but magical guitar of Bo Diddley and the crooner bearin’ down on....’Whoooo Dooo you Trust?’

RD, you said . . .

any independent special prosecutor that Hood would/could appoint would be attacked by the blogging public and rendered useless by the US Attorney’s office

I disagree entirely.  If Jim Hood or even the MS Supremes were to appoint a special prosecutor, I think if it were the right person, that would be entirely accepted by the legal community and “bloggers”.  But putting this in the hands of a local DA is just ridiculous. 

First of all, it is statewide in scope.  It didn’t just happen in Booneville or Oxford or Jackson or Pascagoula.  It happened all over.  It is a statewide case.

However, I’d buy a steak dinner for a DA that took this up in one of those places.  It’s a career maker for sure.  And Hood did pledge all the resources of the AG’s office.

Alan, What’s your take on the CL’s relative silence on Hood’s inaction?  Typically, when there’s a whiff of impropriety on an issue they’re hot and bothered about, they roast a target alive until something happens.  What gives here?

I think they are slowly heating up.  It has taken Mitchell a little while to dial into all of this, but I think he will sink his teeth into their butts shortly.  He was in court up there yesterday.  That’s a good sign.

The editorial page seems to be giving Hood a pass on the state prosecution end.  As Mitchell uncovers the poop, I think they’ll eventually hop on board.

Let me also mention that I have been fielding multiple press inquiries from natl. publications.  As they lock into this, the local newspapers will really dig in.  That will happen very soon.

Alan, true enough but if you are a DA in a county where there is evidence of possible corruption, you still have a duty to investigate in your own bedroom.

Thanks for the quick reply.  But it still begs the question, that a case this big, this far-reaching, and so very local, why is the state’s ‘flagship’ paper not all over it from the very beginning?  Before any of this broke, the CL editorial board was mentioning Op Pretense as if it was the golden calf of corruption.  A similar story breaks and we get......nothing?

could someone bring a mandamus action against the AG and force him to investigate?