Legal Ethics
Miss. Judge Bobby DeLaughter Pleads Guilty to Scruggs-Related Obstruction
Posted Jul 31, 2009 2:03 PM CST
By Martha Neil
A Mississippi judge pleaded guilty to a federal obstruction charge and resigned his seat on the bench yesterday, in exchange for a recommended 18-month prison sentence.
Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter, 55, had faced a five-count corruption case that could have put him behind bars for as much as 20 years if he was convicted of all charges, according to the Clarion-Ledger and the Associated Press. He had been suspended, with pay, from his judicial job since May 2008.
A former prosecutor who made international headlines in a famous civil rights case that brought the 1963 shooter of NAACP leader Medgar Evans to justice in 1994, DeLaughter was assumed the bench in 2002.
His plea concerns a complex case that involves now-disgraced plaintiff attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs. DeLaughter denies that he mishandled big-ticket asbestos litigation involving Scruggs and passed a lie-detector test on the issue, according to his counsel. However, he admitted in his plea that he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2007 about "never" speaking with his onetime boss, ex-Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters, the Clarion-Ledger recounts.
Scruggs' legal team allegedly hired Peters to influence DeLaughter. Peters, who got $1 million from Scruggs, was given immunity in exchange for his testimony against DeLaughter, the newspaper notes.
Although DeLaughter never received any money from Scruggs, he was accused of funneling information about the litigation to the Scruggs legal team in exchange for help trying to gain a seat on the federal bench, as discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post.
U.S. District Judge Glen Davidson must still determine whether to accept DeLaughter's plea in the Jackson, Miss., federal court case. If he rejects it, DeLaughter would still have the right to take the case to trial.
Additional coverage:
ABAJournal.com: "Miss. Judge is Federally Indicted in Scruggs-Related Corruption Case"
Blog of Legal Times: "State Judge in Mississippi Pleads Guilty to Obstruction"
Mississippi Writers & Musicians: "Bobby B. DeLaughter"
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Comments
B. McLeod
Aug 1, 2009 6:44 PM CST
The lights go down, DeLaughter fades.
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practitioner
Aug 2, 2009 7:15 PM CST
How violating the Sixth Amendment (right to speedy trial) against Byron de la Beckwith makes Bobby DeLaughter a hero is beyond belief—except for Hollywood. Here is an interesting piece that reaches the same conclusion:
http://www.nationalist.org/docs/history/2009/080101.html
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Catherine W. Real, Esquire
Aug 3, 2009 6:54 PM CST
I have been practicing law for over thirty years. We all know that our Courts are allocated substantial sums from the public coffers for various treatment programs. In my state courts, our chief judges enter into contracts with various private organizations which provide certain kinds of rehabilitative services (like drug therapy, anger management counseling, etc.)
Then our local judges “order” defendants to participate in these programs for which these private organizations charge a fee. The number of “court ordered” referrals can make any counseling program rich, whether for-profit or non-profit. If there is only “one” organization which gets the bulk of court ordered anger management counseling referrals for spouse abusers in your area, have you ever asked yourself why? Have you looked at your local court’s budget and see what organizations get most, if not all, of the referrals. What a GREAT research project for a political science professor at your local college or university. The professor gets the benefit of publishing and the public gets the benefits of learning for the first time why so few organizations get almost all the court ordered referral gravy. Use of judicial power to order defendants into specific rehabilitative programs and any use of money allocated to the Courts to treat spouse and substance abusers should be used to fund “many” rehabilitative models, rather than just one. The astronomical recidivism rate for domestic violence confirms this need. Let us examine thoroughly in each of our jurisdictions whether our judges are making court ordered referrals or allocating public funds for these rehabilitative purposes in the best interests of the public or in the best interest of our elected local judges.
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