Grand jury indicts high-profile lawyer in bribery scheme

This is something that I expect has a lot of people in our state lookinf over thier shoulders.


OXFORD, Miss. (AP) - A federal grand jury has indicted prominent attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs on criminal charges that he and other lawyers engaged in a scheme to bribe a judge.
A 13-page indictment accuses Scruggs, his son and law partner Zach Scruggs and three other lawyers of conspiring to bribe state Circuit Court Judge Henry Lackey with more than $40,000 in cash.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE INDICTMENT>>>
They were indicted today.
According to the indictment, the lawyers tried to get Lackey to sign an order in a civil lawsuit filed by a law firm that accused Scruggs of withholding fees for work on Hurricane Katrina insurance litigation.
The indictment says Lackey, who sits in Mississippi's Third Circuit Court District, reported the "bribery overture" to federal authorities and agreed to assist investigators in an "undercover capacity."
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Hearing

Today I had the hearing I blogged about a few days ago. The hearing went pretty good for my client. I was able to prevent the baby momma from bringing up paternity at all. She tried and and tried, but she was shut down. She was ordered to allow visitation to continue as normal, to pay me $1,500.00, to no speak to the child about who her father may or may or may not be. Several times the judge warned her she was about to spend the next few days in a jail cell. We o back on January 7, 2008 for her to show cause why she should not go to jail for contempt.

That is the good part.

Within 15 minutes of the actual hearing, but while waiting for the judge to sign the Order, the baby momma and the supposed new baby daddy discussed my client as a child molester in front of the child which I heard as well as a bailiff. What I did not hear, but was heard by the bailiff, court administrator and court clerk was about the child paternity, new tests and that my client was not daddy - in direct violation of the Judges Order. I will discuss going back to court ASAP or waiting until January with my client. I cannot express how pissed I am.

Why it is a bad idea to like your clients

On Tuesday I have to head to court on a case that has a tortured past. I have reprsented this man for at least three years in a fight to get simple visitation rights. It has been a rollercoaster of lies and deceit. Finally this past summer he got court ordered visitation after a total of 15 years and three attorneys. His ex was very very pissed.

Flashforward - the ex has told the child my client is not dad, that another man is. She even has a brand spanking new DNA test she had done to prove it.

At this point the DNA test is worthless, except for the pain it has caused. On Tueday we are asking the ex be put in jail for interfering with the natural parental relationship and refusing visits. See even IF the test is real, my client is legally the father and will be until a court says otherwise.

Now as to the test, the ex sent somebodies samples off to be tested. The question is whose samples?

Further, my client has to decide if he wants to agree to a real DNA test or to fight the whole thing. This is not a question I can answer, only he can.

Makes for a long Thanksgiving in this house and I am sure in his as well.

Short week

Today I have been busy as a one armed man in a porn fest. Friction burns abound.

Today i have appeared in two different immigration courts - both clients got green cards despite the man attempting to deport them, I got another attorney to agree to a temporary restrained order (TRO) against her client and had a report back on a hearing fro Oct 18. The opposing client owes $37K in back support and had only paid whopping $1000.00 since the hearing. Guess who went to jail?

Gotta love it. cheers

accident

I was in an accident today. My car is totaled.

I did learn first hand just how danerous an airbag is. The heat from the airbag deploying caused my left shirtsleeve to catch fire, my watch was ripped from my arm and from the thumb up I have burned and/or filleted the skin off in a 1/2 wide strip. Also the tip of the pinky I was hoping to save - well I am back to square one there.

The passenger side airbag blow out the passenger side windshield.

For god sakes DO NOT put children in the front seat of an airbag equiped car.

Gotta love it

In the world of litigation there is nothing like representing a corporate client. In a case that has landed BACK on my desk this client has general counsel who is overseeing what outside counsel is doing to moniter us the litigation counsel. Crazy huh?

Well I worked on this case the back when it first came to us and last looked at it in 2003-2004. I then moved on to pretty much become the go to trial attorney here and didn't have to do a lot of the lowly scut work on others cases. Well now this monster -17 boxs so far is back on my desk to complete discovery and depositions with an eye towards trial next year. In short, I will get to bill the hell out of this - I will have to relearn alot of the facts, review what has been done so far and then go to work on what I need to do. Sure it will mean some long hours of boring reading, but each hour is gold. thank you thank you thank you.

The Truth

I admit it - I like legal fiction movies and TV shows. I don't know why - most of the time I have to keep from yelling you can't do that, or why don't you obect. But I watch them just the same.
Once in a while there is something in a movie that strikes me as perfect.

In the movie "A Civil Action" while the two attorneys are talkng in a hall way outside the courtroom waiting on the jury to come back the following conversation takes place:

Jerome Facher(Robert Durval): What's your take?
Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta): They'll see the truth.
Jerome Facher: The truth? I thought we were talking about a court of law. Come on, you've been around long enough to know that a courtroom isn't a place to look for the truth.

The cold hard fact is truth is not normally a consideration in a trial. A trial is about winning. The jury will never hear all of the facts, will never know everything. Each attorney will try to limit what the other side can say and that s the way the system is designed. And to add to it, many legal experts believe a ury makes up its mind by the time opneing statements are finished but before the 1st witness is called.

I am not sure I believe that but I have had a trial that I knew I won on the first day of a four day trial as soon as I finished cross examining the plaintiff. My client honestly owed her some money, just not the millions she wanted. From the 1st day I could see the jury didn't like her and refused to accept anything her attorneys said.

At no time have I ever looked to find the "truth" in trial. I am not sure what the "truth" is.

Clients

Clients make the legal world go round and round. Without them we would have nothing to do all day but play golf and sexually harass the staff. But with clients comes certain, how shall I put this - pains in the ass.

In a recent email there was a sentence "If you've ever represented a client you didn't like . . ." Hold that thought while I stop laughing.

I am not sure I have ever met a client I liked. I love their checkbooks and the bizarre stories they bring to me, but I have yet found one I would spend non-billable time with, unless of course they were my friend before I was their attorney. (Tends to happen when your home is a bar and all of your friends are regulars).

Actually, some of my clients are good people just caught in a bad spot. Some I even feel sorry for, but they are clients. That can be the hardest part of being a new lawyer - a client is not your friend, just do the job and move on. I know I had trouble with that years ago and I see it in our new attorneys. Do the work, bill for it and forget about it when you leave the office. Do not think "can they afford for me to do this? Should I really bill for that?" - again they are clients, not your friends.

If they are your friends you probably should not be representing them anyway - you are to invested in their lives to give good advice.

Besides a client is just a necessary evil in this profession. If only there was a way to practice law, make tons of and not have any clients. Paradise.

Well it is time to go fire up a cigar and ponder how to bill for the time it took to write this.

Cheers

Sick and tired, but mostly sick

I am not a Constitutional scholar or even considered to be a bright attorney by many of the elite attorneys, mostly because I did not go to the right law school or work for the right law firm, but I do know this much. I have spent the past six years practicing immigration law and arguing over what is torture verses mere persecution. That distinction becomes important in asylum cases based on the facts of any given case. After years of doing this I am sick to my soul over what our government has become. I do not recognize it as the same place as when I was going up. It is yet another example to me why I think “they” have won.

I, like the current nominee for attorney general, do know the intimate specifics of how the U.S. Government has used “waterboarding”, I only know that clients have told me about their experiences at the hands of others and what I have researched over the years about torture and United States law.

The U.S. Constitution is the highest law of the land with exceptions, but I will get to that in a second. Amendment VIII of the Constitution states Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Seems pretty clear that cruel and unusual punishments are not allowed.

The Exception I mentioned is found at Article VI, second paragraph, “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. “ (Emphasis added)

Now this means any treaty the U.S. Enters into and is ratified by Congress shall be the law of the land.

On April 18, 1988 the United States adopted and became bound by the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment. (Cat) This is pretty important because Article I of the CAT reads:

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Now waterboarding is described as:

Waterboarding is a torture technique that simulates drowning in a controlled environment. It consists of immobilizing an individual on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face to force the inhalation of water into the lungs. Waterboarding has been used to obtain information, coerce confessions, punish, and intimidate. In contrast to merely submerging the head, waterboarding elicits the gag reflex, and can make the subject believe death is imminent. Waterboarding's use as a method of torture or means to support interrogation is based on its ability to cause extreme mental distress while possibly creating no lasting physical damage to the subject. The psychological effects on victims of waterboarding can last long after the procedure. Although waterboarding in cases can leave no lasting physical damage, it carries the real risks of extreme pain, damage to the lungs, brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, injuries as a result of struggling against restraints (including broken bones), and even death.
Numerous experts have described this technique as torture. Some nations have also criminally prosecuted individuals for performing waterboarding, including the United States. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding)

In 1947, the United States charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for carrying out another form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian. The subject was strapped on a stretcher that was tilted so that his feet were in the air and head near the floor, and small amounts of water were poured over his face, leaving him gasping for air until he agreed to talk.
"Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) told his colleagues last Thursday during the debate on military commissions legislation. "We punished people with 15 years of hard labor when waterboarding was used against Americans in World War II," he said. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/04/AR2006100402005.html)

Now, again I am not a super smart person, but it seems to me that waterboarding is torture. But then again I am not likely to ever be attorney general.

Your thoughts are welcome

You decide

I am off to court to argue that my client should have custody of the kids while the divorce is pending. Not really sure what there is to fight over in the divorce - no assets, no debts, oh well. But fight we will.

One person has a job and a full blown drug/alcohol problem.
The other is unemployed and 5 weeks removed from rehab and living with parents.

Who do you pick?

Those are pretty much the facts the judge has to work with.