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Hometown advantage in l'affaire Scruggs

By Mark Obbie

Readers of the dead-tree version of The Wall Street Journal learned today (subscription required, for now) that the judicial-bribery investigation centered on Mississippi plaintiffs' lawyer Dickie Scruggs has widened. Citing a plea agreement unsealed in court documents yesterday, Ashby Jones lays out the basic facts: Lawyer Joey Langston has admitted to a role in an alleged conspiracy to funnel money and a federal judgeship to Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter to rig a ruling on attorneys' fees favoring the already-wildly-rich Scruggs. Stroll on over to the Journal's Law Blog, which Jones edits, and you'll see posts dating back a week as the scandal's new dimension came into focus. The WSJ Law Blog generously gave credit where it's been due since Jan. 8 -- to veteran criminal justice reporter Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson, Miss., Clarion-Ledger. Mitchell broke the news a week ago, using documents and sources to track a grand jury's progress. He followed it up on Sunday and then again today as the plea deal was unsealed. DeLaughter isn't talking now, but he emphatically denied to Mitchell taking any favors from anyone.Mitchell's renown stems from his groundbreaking investigations of unsolved civil rights murders -- one of the most famous of which put DeLaughter in the role of good guy. DeLaughter successfully prosecuted Byron De La Beckwith for the murder of civil-rights leader Medgar Evers, in a case that Mitchell breathed life into (disclosure: I unfavorably reviewed DeLaughter's memoir about the case in The American Lawyer).

Full post as published by Lawbeat on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).