Will Judge Barbour or Yerger Release Peters Grand Jury Testimony?
Judge Davidson's opinion authorizing the delivery of materials related to Ed Peters' grand jury testimony in the DeLaughter criminal case to Judge Barbour (presides over Frisby employees' criminal trial) and Judge Yerger (presides over Eaton v. Frisby civil case) has been reported on multiple sites. Here is the AP newspaper article, and posts by NMC here and here. There is a link to Judge Davidson's opinion in the second NMC post. Judge Davidson's opinion states that there is authority to support requiring disclosure of the information.
Unfortunately for the public, the information will be provided to the judges under seal. Judge Yerger has already shown a tendency to seal evidence related to DeLaughter-Peters in the civil case even when the justification appears real thin. It will probably be easier for him to seal material from a grand jury investigation, which normally remains confidential.
The most interesting element of the story is the capacity for Eaton's spokesperson to continually stick his foot in his mouth. Eaton spokesman Don McGrath is quoted in the articles:
"We in no way hired [Peters] to influence Judge Delaughter or any other judge on Eaton's behalf," McGrath said. "We feel that our case is very strong, and I think the government's case is very strong."
You would think that Eaton would do a better job in screening McGrath's quotes. Here, he should have said that Peters wasn't hired to "improperly" influence Judge DeLaughter. Lawyers are most definitely hired to influence judges. Isn't that how cases are won? By influencing judges and juries? There is nothing wrong with hiring lawyers to influence judges--it's when you hire a lawyer to improperly influence a judge that you get into trouble.
In Eaton v. Frisby Ed Peters did not: originate the case, file an entry of appearance, appear as counsel on any pleadings, draft any briefs or other pleadings, appear at any depositions or appear at any hearings. So what was his job, Eaton?
We do know that Eaton did not like Special Master Jack Dunbar's rulings in the case and Ed Peters worked as an intermediary between Judge DeLaughter and Larry Latham and that DeLaughter unilaterally replaced Dunbar with Latham, until Latham smelled a rat and reported the whole thing to Judge Yerger. This falls outside the category of properly influencing a judge. Eaton will of course claim that it did not know what Peters was doing. It is unknown what Peters may say about this. But it brings one back to the question: what did Eaton think Peters was doing?
I have not read a quote from Eaton giving a logical and coherent reason for its hiring Peters. Let's face it, everyone knows that Eaton hired Peters because of his relationship with DeLaughter. If Eaton denies this fact, it is going to damage all other arguments that Eaton makes. It's guilt by association: this Peters argument is hogwash, so the rest of your arguments must be hogwash too. And Eaton did not have to deny that it hired Peters to help with DeLaughter. All it had to say was that Eaton hired Peters because of his credibility with DeLaughter, but that everything was supposed to be on the up and up. If Peters did something improper, Eaton did not know or approve. But Eaton appears to be beyond making this assertion at this point and is stuck with arguments that no one believes.
