Another great background piece from Walter Olson at Overlawyered.

During the period of time when the entire country was laughing at the State of Mississippi about “jackpot justice”, where these type arrangements being made???????????  and what about the law firms involved?  Were there any firms that were subject to charges?

Only time will tell whether that was a good deal for the feds or not.  Based on what they have done so far, I would say that this investigative/prosecutorial team knows their business and has been making the right calls.

If they traded all that to Langston, I can’t wait to see what they got in return.  I can only think of a few names in the state that would be worth that kind of trade, and I’m sure everyone else here can figure out who they are.

I noticed there were some comments on Overlawyered as to whether Joey and Shane Langston were brothers. I’m assuming everyone here knew they were.

Lawdoctor, If we actually had an Attorney General in this State, Could he legally go after Langston’s assetts or would he have to honor the deal made by the feds?

boxcar: I think the plea agreement Langston entered into doesn’t prevent any other agency from pursuing him nor does it prevent the IRS from coming after him. There are state charges in play. The AG has said it is up to the local D.A.’s to pursue, which is hogwash. He has the authority under state statute to get involved.

Hogwash indeed...let me give you a recent example of the Feds working on an investigation at the same time that Hood did so at the state level.

Recall the beef plant situation.  The Feds were involved in that scandal as well, bringing indictments on Richard Hall and Sean Carothers. 

Hood led an a state investigation into the beef plant situation simultaneously, and working with a local D.A., brought separate state charges in a state court against Richard Hall.

This is from Hood’s own website:

Failed Beef Plant Owner to be Sentenced on State Charges
September 27 2007
Contact: Jan Schaefer
Public Information Officer
601/359.2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jackson, MS–Attorney General Jim Hood and District 17 District Attorney John Champion today confirmed that Richard Hall, Jr. will be sentenced tomorrow (Friday, September 28) on three counts of mail fraud following a state investigation into the failed Mississippi Beef Processors plant that he owned in Oakland, MS.

Hall will appear before Judge Andrew Baker in Sardis on a joint prosecution between the Attorney General’s Office and the District 17 (DeSoto, Panola, Tallahatchie, Tate, Yalobusha Counties) District Attorney’s Office.
Hall plead guilty in 2006 to state and federal charges against him earlier this year. He was sentenced in August of this year to eight years on the federal charges of money laundering and mail fraud and ordered to pay $577,964 in restitution.

Of course, there was a contested election for Attorney General going on at the time...and Hood’s friends and contributors weren’t the targets of the investigation.

The federal government can’t speak for the state government, and vice versa, on immunity for charges or forfeiture.  So, yes, they could, as a short answer.

A long answer would involve weighing the various state remedies available (including RICO) to see which would apply.

I think the state statutes that most closely apply would be Sec’s 7-5-59, 97-1-1 and 97-11-53.  Looking at those they give the A.G. investigative, subpoena and prosecutorial authority to pursue charges arising out of a conspiracy to bribe a judge or other elected officials

I was referring more to state statutes allowing the state to forfeit Langston’s property.  I think it is crystal clear that the state, either District Attorneys, or the Attorney General, can prosecute someone for bribing a judge.

From the Attorney General’s website:

Public Integrity
The staff of attorneys and investigators in the Public Integrity Division (PID) are responsible for the prosecution of several types of criminal cases in the State Courts in Mississippi. As its primary mission, PID is charged with the responsibility of investigating and prosecuting public corruption and white collar crime. PID works closely with various State agencies, such as the Mississippi Auditor’s Office and Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office, as well as with federal agencies and local law enforcement in the investigation and prosecution of corrupt public employees or private citizens conducting business with the State in a fraudulent or otherwise illegal manner.

law doc,
Specifically, which statute do you feel can be charged against a judge that would be rico.  Clearly if the judge’s child was held hostage by the warlords or other gang, then there you have a rico action.  I have looked at the references you cite but they do not specifically deal with attempted bribery or influencing a judge.  IN chapter 97 they talk about everybody but a judge, i.e. arbiter, but does not mention judge.  Which statute do you claim the AG could prosecute the defendants and use rico to forfeit assets of a defendant in a non gang or drug case?

res ipsa:  “hogwash” indeed.  how you people hold back with your tame little words of description just impresses me to no end.  i’d be a goner, GONER, if i dared to throw out my little adjectives for this biggest bunch of b.s. ever, EVER.  Am I the only person with a fake ID knowing for dead sure these yo-yos’d be way better off keeping their muzzles laced good and tight.  Things are looking dire indeed when my 2-year-old grandbaby’s tellin’ the neighborhood his little intelligence is being insulted by certain ELECTS and that even he didn’t fall off last week’s turnip truck.  Couldn’t they at least look for a spin doctor whose double-wide is, maybe, a stone’s throw from Bassville city limits?

Ok, after rechecking the statutes I find that 97-11-11 and 97-11-13 sez that either the one giving or the one accepting a bribe is subject to up to 10 years and up to $5000.00 fine. BUT what i was really looking for and still haven’t found is where the state can cause a forfeiture of all a defendant’s assets in a bribery case in state court.  Can anyone point me to the right direction in the code?

2 tired:  that’d be the RACKETEERING AND INFLUENCE CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT—It’s just a little federal thing.  Got enacted way back to help nail folks like Al Capone...they couldn’t get him for busting skulls, but tagged him good with peddlin’ around his corrupt influences and cheating on his taxes.  Stuff like that. Now, Lawdoc and the prim and propers we’ll be given you perfectly worded, neat symposiums on what I just told you.  And, that’s great.  Don’t mind me. I’m goin’ tell it my way, like it or not.

Oh, but don’t look for hood and them to be doing any charging in this deal.  Or, look, if you wish.  And have a big time out there hunting.  This gig is in the hands of Mr. Greenlee and his bunch. PERIOD. END OF SUBJECT. It’s another one of those little federal things…

This is a nitpick, but RICO actually came about in 1970 and wasn’t really enforced on any wide-scale basis until the mid 1980s.  (It was Giuliani, I kid you not, who prosecuted the most significant RICO case in U.S. history back in 1985.)

Capone was nailed on tax evasion, but not racketeering, and survived his jail sentence--but had suffered so much dementia, due (most historians believe) to syphilis, that his quality of life after he left prison was pretty terrible despite the considerable amount of money he still had.  He didn’t really know who or where he was, and he just kind of kept eating, sleeping, and breathing until he stopped.

Anyway, the more lawyers and judges I see named in this stuff, the more plausible racketeering charges look.  It isn’t looking pretty, that’s for sure.

t-head:  no nit-pickin’ offense taken.  just got to trace it back to early mob days when mob owned, say, the Windy City, nevermind the state.  al and them weren’t comin’ close to gettin’ fingered for putting out the hit - much less drivin’ a carving knife right into the skull of a buddy at the dinner table.  so, what’s a gov’t to do?  get you a couple of book-keepers to poke around in the books and discover a thing or two the DON didn’t report to the IRS...next thing you know, they’re onto something with this tax cheatin’ thing.  By gosh, can’t get ‘em one way, we’ll just find us another.  And, find they did.  Ergo, your evolution of the RICO tool-box.  Came in right handy, and, yep, Guiliani cleaned up some of what wasn’t already strewn all over the streets of the Bronx in one of those good ol’ fashion shoot-outs after spaghetti and Chianti.

so here i am in lake tahoe...and lo and behold i find myself at a table with a graduate of the school of law at ole miss.....when he found out i was from ms., he asked me, what the hell is going on....
well, since he now lives in austin, all i could do was direct him to yallpolitics.com for him to do his own research.......

delta13 said “and lo and behold i find myself at a table with a graduate of the school of law at ole miss.....when he found out i was from ms., he asked me, what the hell is going on....”

I think he was askin’ about the coroner’s wagons that be driving up and down Medgar Evers two, three nites a week.

For the record............RICO was finally given a title in the 70s. The History remains.

The provisions in RICO against wire and mail fraud would be the logical place to start, but generally you wouldn’t want to rest on just those two predicate act violatons.  Also remember that civil federal RICO is available to anyone and criminal federal RICO is also available to the attorney generals of the states (a powerful, but little used option given to the state AG’s).

The State of Mississippi also has its own version of RICO, although I am not as familiar with it.

There are entire seminars for attorneys dedicated to the explanation of RICO and its applications to various cases.  It would take a long time to go over every possible way RICO could or couldn’t be used in the instant cases.

But, I don’t think many people who have actually used it, and I have, couldn’t draft a useful complaint in this case.

Jman said, “For the record............RICO was finally given a title in the 70s. The History remains.

Posted by jman”

jman, are you correcting googleman?

quote by Donn:
<jman, are you correcting googleman?>

Somewhat...........in a polite sort of way.