Continuing fallout from the Mississippi scandal: “State Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. and two former judges are under indictment for loans guaranteed or paid off by Gulf Coast trial lawyer Paul Minor, but they are not the only ones to receive such help from Minor.” State Chief Justice Ed Pittman, for example, benefited from a $40,000 loan guarantee. (Jerry Mitchell, “Loan to chief justice cited”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Aug. 17). “Pascagoula lawyer Dickie Scruggs said he guaranteed an $80,000 loan to state Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr. in his 2000 runoff,” saying it was necessary to keep business interests from buying the court (“Tobacco lawyer: Influence not factor in funding help”, Aug. 17; Jack Elliott, Jr., “Scruggs defends Diaz, Tuck loans”, AP/Biloxi Sun-Herald, Aug. 15)(see Jul. 27 and links from there).
In a recent speech, Scruggs denounced “McCarthy-like investigations” which he said were plotted by the Bush administration and business interests to disable trial lawyers’ effectiveness (Tom Wilemon, Margaret Baker and Beth Musgrave, “Scruggs attacks ‘McCarthy’ probes”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Aug. 1). Scruggs has also clashed with the Sun-Herald concerning a story in the paper identifying him as the unnamed “intermediary #2” mentioned in the federal indictments. (Margaret Baker, Tom Wilemon and Beth Musgrave, “Scruggs unnamed figure in indictments”, Biloxi Sun-Herald, Jul. 29; “Setting the record straight on Scruggs’ ad” (editorial), Jul. 31). Mississippi blogger Scipio (“Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”) has penned an unashamedly opinionated summary of where the whole mess stands at present (Aug. 18, scroll up and down for related posts).
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