Weekend Update: C-L Speculates on DeLaughter's Replacement and Status of Judicial Bribery Probe
Saturday's Clarion-Ledger contains this article about possible appointees for the Circuit Court Judge seat formerly held by Bobby DeLaughter. The article mentions Rep. Phillip Gunn and Judges Bill Skinner and Bill Gowan as possible replacements. Ipse Blogit has this position going to Gunn if he wants it. Ipse Blogit probably has much better sources on this than the Ledger.
Sunday's Clarion-Ledger has this article about the status of the judicial bribery probe and the Eaton v. Frisby case. While the probe may not be over, I have trouble believing that it is going anywhere. The original indictments of Scruggs and company were handed down quickly. With all of those guys cooperating it's hard to believe that it would take this long for more indictments. Everyone thought that there would be more lawyers indicted in the fen phen probe, but there never were. The judicial bribery probe looks similar as far as dying a slow death.
The most interesting part of the article were the quotes of Eaton senior vice president of communications Don McGrath. McGrath denies that Ed Peters was brought into the case to improplery influence Ed Peters:
"There are a lot of false statements in here," said Don McGrath, senior vice president of communications for Eaton, said of the document. "In no way did we ask Ed Peters to imply or ask or insinuate that he would do anything improper in trying to influence Judge DeLaughter or any other judge."
Asked why Eaton decided to hire Peters, a longtime prosecutor, McGrath replied, "There are few Mississippi trial lawyers that have as much experience as Ed Peters."
As for Peters not being listed with the other attorneys of record, McGrath explained that not everyone who works on a lawsuit gets mentioned. "There's no requirement to list everybody working on the case," he said.
I don't buy any of this. First, there is not one lawyer in the Jackson area who would believe that Peters' job on the case was to do anything other than influence DeLaughter. If Eaton's objective was for Peters to "properly" influence DeLaughter, that is a slippery slope. The fact that Peters never filed an entry of appearance, which is standard when a new lawyer enters a case, suggests that the intent was to improperly influence DeLaughter. Otherwise, how would DeLaughter know that Peters was even in the case, since he never appeared?
Second, the justification that Eaton hired Peters because of his trial experience is hogwash. If that was true, Peters would have been trying civil cases all over the state instead of focusing his civil practice on airport meetings sandwiched around lunch with the judge at Shoney's. If McGrath cannot do any better than this he needs to keep his mouth shut.
Third, although there is no requirement to mention everyone working on a case, why exactly did Eaton not disclose that Peters was on the case? The fact that it's not required sounds more like a defense than a real reason. Peters was involved in the case and apparently talked DeLaughter into replacing Jack Dunbar as special master. Peters went so far as to call Larry Latham to see if he would be willing to serve as special master, but later left a cryptic message with Latham to not mention his name. To Latham's credit, he immediately reported this. This leaves the question of what Eaton and its lawyers knew about all this.
According to Tim Balducci's testimony about Scruggs v. Wilson, Peters did not get hired and then never communicate back with the people who hired him. In the Scruggs case, Peters communicated his every move back to the Scruggs team. Why would it have been any different in Eaton? Why would Peters have taken it upon himself to get the special master replaced after a bad ruling? And would he have done it without consulting with the other Eaton lawyers on the case? In my opinion, the answer is no. The bottom line is that the more information that emerges, the worse it looks for Eaton.
I intend to write more about this later, but there should be a rule or law in Mississippi that prohibits the hiring of a lawyer because of the lawyer's personal relationship with the presiding judge. There is currently no such prohibition.
