NMC Refutes Clarion-Ledger Statement About DeLaughter's Reversal Rate
The Saturday Clarion-Ledger was legal themed with three articles covering legal issues. There was this article about Big Law paying would-be associates to perform public interest work instead of starting work at the firm, which doesn't have work for new associates due to the recession. These are great programs for several reasons. Money starved non-profits and public policy firms get free legal work. The new lawyers get valuable experience and exposure to the poor and and mistreated that most would not otherwise obtain. The bad news is that this is a terrible sign for the legal industry in general and current law students in particular. For the legal industry it indicates how little work big firms have. For law students, if Big Law is paying new lawyers to work somewhere else, then the job market must be terrible.
Another article was this article about this week's Mississippi Court of Appeals decision in which the Court ruled that a railroad did not have standing to challenge an adoption by a former employee who sued the company.
The longest article was this Jerry Mitchell article about the Mississippi Supreme Court reversing Judge DeLaughter's grant of summary judgment for attorneys Gene Tullos and Crymes Pittman. The article contained this statement:
Since that plea, the high court has upheld nearly all of DeLaughter's rulings in criminal and civil cases.
That did not seem right when I read the article. It did not seem right to Tom Freeland either, who wrote this post about it at NMC and commented:
Since the first of August, the Mississippi Supreme Court has published opinions in four cases appealed from rulings by Judge DeLaughter. All four were reversed; it’s a small sample size, but the court hasn’t upheld a single one of DeLaughter’s rulings since the plea. His rulings have faired better in the Court of Appeals– three affirmances, two in civil cases (one of the affirmances was a pro se criminal appeal). Going back to when the cloud first formed over his head in December of 2007, there were two reversals and six affirmances by the Supreme Court, which is more what you’d expect.
I’m having trouble counting four reversals, no affirmances as “upholding nearly all of DeLaughter’s rulings…” since the plea.
Agreed. I try to read the Court's hand-down decisions every Thursday. My general impression, without going back and doing the research, was that Judge DeLaughter was usually affirmed before the judicial bribery scandal and has been usually reversed since the scandal. Perhaps that is just a coincidence. But perhaps it is not. Overnight, DeLaughter went from a very respected judge to a judge whose every ruling is suspect. It's only natural for the Court to take a harder look at DeLaughter's decisions.
As for the underlying Tullos case, it should be kept in mind that the Court's reversal was on procedural grounds and did not address the merits of the case. Both Tullos and Pittman commented for the Clarion-Ledger article and appear to have solid defenses. I think it was smart for Tullos and Pittman to comment to Mitchell to get their side of the story out to the public. I do not understand why more people who are parties in high profile cases do not get their story into to public domain.
