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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 10/08/2002 5:34:18 AM PDT by spald
Contributions in Mississippi By MICHAEL OREY
Are Probed by Law Officials
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Federal and state law-enforcement authorities in Mississippi are investigating contributions to state judicial campaigns by plaintiffs' lawyers, including Richard Scruggs, a Pascagoula, Miss., attorney who made hundreds of millions of dollars suing the tobacco industry.
The probe, which is at an early stage, appears to be examining whether money was illegally funneled to judges with the aim of influencing the outcome of particular cases, people familiar with the situation said. Mississippi is a key battleground in judicial elections because business groups consider the state's courts to be especially hostile.
Mr. Scruggs said he met in August with Dunn Lampton, the U.S. attorney in Jackson, Miss., and Mike Moore, the state's attorney general, and was questioned about his contributions. Mr. Scruggs said he met again in early September with agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Biloxi, Miss.
"I'm a big contributor, and so I would have been a natural person to talk to," said Mr. Scruggs, who added that all his campaign giving has been appropriate.
Thirty-eight states hold judicial elections, which historically have been low-key and low-budget affairs. In recent years, though, business groups and plaintiffs' lawyers have squared off in key races and the amount of money needed to wage judicial campaigns has soared. For elections in 2000, candidates for state supreme courts raised $45.6 million, double what they raised in 1994, according to a report issued by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School.
The 2000 election made funding of judicial campaigns a high-profile issue in Mississippi. Mr. Moore, the attorney general, has gone to court to try to force the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to disclose what it spent on advertisements that year. The chamber has argued that it isn't subject to state disclosure rules because it ran only "issue ads," which didn't expressly tell voters to support a particular candidate.
Mr. Scruggs said that in 1999 he contributed $80,000 to a political-action group called Mississippi for an Independent Judiciary. In recent years he has also contributed more than $100,000 to the Institute for Consumers and Environmental Political Action Committee, though he said that most of that money is directed to nonjudicial campaigns.
Investigators have also requested information from Paul Minor, a politically active plaintiffs' attorney in Biloxi, according to Joe Sam Owen, a Gulfport, Miss., lawyer who is representing Mr. Minor in the probe. Mr. Scruggs says he hasn't retained an attorney.
Write to Michael Orey at michael.orey@wsj.com
Updated October 8, 2002
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