Election Revisited

In addition to the state judicial elections what may be next most important regarding the election for readers of this blog are presidential appointments. The Clarion Ledger printed a story this morning that has a good recap of some of the impact a President Obama will have on appointments in Mississippi regarding federal judges and federal district attorneys.

the election post script

After giving it a week to soak in I wanted to reflect on the Mississippi elections of last week. The winners were:

Sen: Thad Cochran
Sen: Roger Wicker
HR: Travis Childers
HR: Bennie Thompson
HR: Gregg Harper
HR: Gene Taylor
and John McCain carried MS with 56% of the vote

None of these can really be said to be upsets with perhaps the width of the Wicker victory over Musgrove by 10% and it was slightly surprising the ease at which Childers defeated Davis considering how close the special election was less than a year before.

What was surprising in the election was the races for the Mississippi Supreme Court as 3 of the 4 challengers were successful in their bids to the State's highest judicial offices.

Justice Ann Lamar successfully held her seat as Chief Justice Jim Smith lost to Jim Kitchens, Justice Chuck Easley was defeated by Court of Appeals Judge David Chandler, and Justice Oliver Diaz was defeated by Chancellor Bubba Pierce. While this may not cause seismic shifts on the court (Pierce is probably more conservative than Diaz and Kitchens is less conservative than Smith while Chandler and Easley often rule in civil cases similarly) this could be an interesting new court as 1/3 of the highest court in Mississippi is infused with new blood.

Changes in Chancery Court

The MS Supreme Court is currently seeking comment, until November 10, 2008, on a change to Rules 8.05 of the Uniform Chancery Rules.This change would effect the ability to redact certain items on the written statement of income or to have the items not redacted but the statement placed under seal.

This seems like a pretty mundane move to protect people's privacy while still obtaining what is legally needed. Additionally, I think this is how things are done anyway and they are just now putting it officially in the rules.

Alpha

This blog is an outgrowth of the Mississippi Law blog in which I used to participate in with a couple other friends and lawyers. Their interest seemed to dwindle in the blog (as did mine at some point) but I believe their is a need for this information and I wanted to start my own singular blog as a measure of blogging manifest destiny. I will bring my posts from that site over here and pick up with my future blogging on this site only. I hope this will be a enjoyable and informative place for Mississippi legal news.

The Bailout Vote

As many of you may know by this point 3 of the 4 Representatives from Mississippi voted against the bailout yesterday. Of comments I have seen Rep. Childers from D-1 stated: "Hard-working families are struggling in the face of job losses and home foreclosures resulting from overall economic instability. They are justifiably angry about a bailout that would require them to dig deeper into their pockets to rescue Wall Street from it's own recklessness."

"Earlier this year, I voted against a budget that would raise the federal debt to an unprecedented level. Today, I was again compelled to vote my conscience against a massive debt increase."

The quote punctuation is a little iffy in the original from WJTV but it sounds like a quote to me.

Additionally, Gene Taylor from D-4 stated: "If there was a button that said 'Hell, no,' I'd push it," said Taylor. "I hate to use a cliché, but this falls into the category of throwing money at a problem and hope it works." according to the Sun-Herald.

Orders now available online for the MS Supreme Court and Court of Appeals

A note shared with the MS Bar through e-Newsletter I thought I would share:

Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Orders Are On Internet

Orders of the Mississippi Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals filed on or after Sept. 25, 2008, can be viewed via the Internet. Access to copies of court orders is available from the General Docket page on the Court's web site. Go to http://www.mssc.state.ms.us/appellate_courts/generaldocket.html.

Cases are searchable by cause number, party name or attorney name. Point-and-click access to court orders will not be available directly from the weekly hand down lists of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. Gaining access to the full text of orders will require one to pull up the docket sheet for the individual case from the General Docket, then click on the link for the order. Orders will be available via the Internet on the day after they are filed. The web site is updated each evening. Appellate court orders filed from Sept. 25, 2008, forward, will be available as digital images. The Court does not plan to link to orders entered before that date.

Wicker v. Musgrove

In what appears to be a fairly close election between Roger Wicker (R) and Ronnie Musgrove (D) the CL reports the Wicker has more than doubled Musgrove's fundraising.

Chip Pickering

As Chip Pickering, U.S. House of Representatives member for the 3rd District wraps up his stint in Congress the CL give a nice historic wrap up of most of his time and accomplishments while in the House. A good read for those who would like to know more about him.

Additionally, for the less sunny side one can see the comments to the article where some Chip bashing occurs.

The Bailout Vote

For those interested in the Mississippi delegations vote on the Bailout last night Senators Cochran and Wicker both voted against the Senate version of the bailout.

This on the heels of Monday's vote where Reps. Thompson, Childers, and Taylor voted against the bill and Rep. Pickering voted for it.

Wicker / Musgrove Ballot Placement Debate

In a move that will remain in Mississippi political lore for years to come the Governor has released a statement regarding the Mississippi Supreme Court's decision to move the Musgrove / Wicker election to the top of the ballot as opposed to the bottom of the ballot.

"The Supreme Court has spoken; so be it."

That is it, that is the entire release by the governor. I will let you come to your own conclusions about it.

The Mississippi general elections are now set

After run-off victories by Gregg Harper in the GOP 3rd District race and Travis Childer (D) and Greg Davis (R) in the 1st District race the election ballot has been finalized for the fall, except for that pesky Presidential race.

House of Representatives:

1st: Travis Childers (D) v. Greg Davis (R)

2nd: Bennie Thompson (D) - i v. Richard Cook (R)

3rd: Joel Gill (D) v. Gregg Harper (R)

4th: Gene Taylor (D) - i v. John McCay III (R)

Senate: Thad Cochran (R) - i v. Erik Fleming (D)

In my opinion all 3 of the incumbents have an easy path to victory and Gregg Harper in District 3 will probably have an easy time. The race I find most interesting is Childers v. Davis in the First. While the 1st district is a fairly Republican stronghold both party's races went into a run-off showing that all the Republicans are not on the same page and depending on the Presidential race a strong Democratic showing might be enough to squeak out this race for the Democrats in a seat that has been held by a Democrat for over 120 years (until Wicker's victory in 1995). However, DeSoto County, a Republican stronghold has been over the last decade one of the fastest growing counties in the nation so it might be interesting.

Dickie Scruggs wants to keep his license

As the Clarion Ledger reported yesterday, Dickie Scruggs of movie and lawyering fame and now infamy is fighting the suspension of his bar license after his pleading guilty to attempting to bribe a judge. On the cover this seems to be crazy in that he pled guilty to a felony but I actually agree with Scruggs on this one.

Scruggs beef is that he actually hasn't been convicted yet, and until the plea is accepted and he is actually convicted then let him keep the license. This is further confused by the fact that some of the parties in this bribery scandal have voluntarily turned in their licenses.

If I was to guess this is a move by Scruggs that is two-fold. It is first an attempt to try and squeeze a little more money out of his law practice before it gets shuttered. On this I can't blame him because he has already been destroyed publicly, why not try and squeeze out a little more green. Second I can see Scruggs doing this because the plea hasn't been accepted and if the judge wants a different deal then loosing his license would take one less bargaining chip away from Scruggs.

Also in a less likely scenario I think Scruggs might do this just for the fact that he wants to stick it to the bar which he probably feels like turned on him and he doesn't want to play nice with anyone. I'm not saying this is the plausible idea but it is possible.

Mississippi Primary Law

One of the little know Mississippi primary laws is the "no-crossover law" with regards to primaries. While Mississippi is an open primary state, one does not have to be a registered party member to vote in a party primary, that does not mean a person can vote one party's primary election and the another party's primary run-off election.

This idea is built on the idea that if a person is voting in a party primary they are a member of that party registered or not and MS law requires that you "support the nominations made in the primary in which he participates". MS Code 23-15-575.

Where is comes into play now is when people, typically radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh, convince voters to go and vote in the primary opposite of their normal party allegiance for the purpose of tearing down or defeating (hopefully) the person who is the voters actual favorite candidate will face in the general election.

I should also mention that this law, 23-15-575, has been challenged on slightly different grounds and ruled unconstitutional but the federal court in that case said the current rules could remain in place through the summer of 2008 because the DOJ would not have time to approve changes before the elections (which we are currently in between) occurred. See Mississippi Democratic Party v. Barbour from the Northern District of Mississippi in 2007 for more on this case.

Breaking News - Dickie Scruggs pleads guilty

We've not blogged about Dickie, primarily because so many other places are doing a good job like Folo and Ya'll Politics, but in some of the biggest Mississippi law news of the young year Dickie Scruggs, tobacco litigation magnate has pled guilty attempting to bride a judicial officer which has a maximum term of five years. I recommend checking out folo or Ya'll or this CL article for more.

* It looks like folo is down right now and are working from here.

Proposed Rule Change to MRCP 60

The Court is currently seeking comments, until March 25, 2008, concerning the adding of the following paragraph to Rule 60.

"Reconsideration of a transfer order. An order transferring a case to another court will become effective ten (10) days following the date of the entry of the order. Any motion for reconsideration of the transfer order must be filed prior to the expiration of the 10-day period, for which no extensions may be granted. If a motion for reconsideration is filed, all proceedings will be stayed until such time as the motion is ruled upon; however, if the transferor court fails to rule on the motion for reconsideration within thirty (30) days of the date of filing, the motion shall be deemed denied."