More Scruggs Sentencing Musings
The more I’ve reflected on Scruggs’ Sentencing Memo filed on Wednesday, the more incongruous it seems. No doubt Scruggs is ably represented. His counsel has submitted scores of letters lauding the good works Dickie has done over the years; however, recall that the government had filed a notice back in January that they were going to seek to introduce 404(b) evidence of other crimes that Scruggs had committed.
In that notice, the government informed Scruggs that there was another attempt to corruptly influence a judicial proceeding, referring to the search warrant application for the Langston Law Firm and the information, factual basis, and plea colloquy in United States v. Joseph C. Langston, Case No. 1:08CR003. And, the entire fiasco concerning the Rigsby sisters in the false claims case in front of Judge Acker in the Northern District of Alabama, so ably reported by Dave Rossmiller, just points to a way of doing business by Dickie that is disturbing in the extreme.
Much has been written about the fall of Dickie Scruggs. I will not weigh in on that debate, but he certainly held the court and judicial system in low esteem and terribly corrupted the system through which he made an extraordinary living, and through which, he at one time did some good.
However, given the pattern of the corruption of the system, the government can more than counter the letters about Dickie’s good acts. I am thankful that we’ve finally moved away from searching sentencing equality (there is none) in a numeric based sentencing system that was wildly flawed, but I can’t conceive of any way that Judge Biggers gets below 60 months for Mr. Scruggs. A sad epilogue for a meteoric legal career.
I look forward to discussing with Tom Freeland of the Folo Blog his personal observations regarding the sentencing hearing. Tom has done an extraordinary job blogging about this case seasoned with local flavor. And, kudos for Tom in getting access to the sentencing in a shout out to his blog from Judge Biggers in this Order.
