Today, the Jackson Free Press published an interview with longtime columnist Bill Minor. Minor’s son, tort baron Paul Minor, was convicted in 2007 on conspiring to bribe two state court judges. As part of the case, the government put on damning evidence as shown in the indictment that showed Minor maintiaining continued improper influence by continuing to fund campaign loans for judges who decided cases with Minor as a party.
Bill Minor, a longtime liberal firebrand in the Mississippi press landscape, has historically been the first to call for federal prosecutorial intervention for wrongs stemming from the Civil Rights era. That same Department of Justice that brought relief to his political ends now made a case to a duly selected jury of peers that found his son guilty of corruption. He also seems desperate to conflate the prosecution of his son with other political figures without a shred of evidence to support those claims. From the interview . . .
Knowingly or not, Judge Henry Wingate became a tool for the corrupt DOJ, rejecting use of 80 percent of the evidence used in Paul’s first trial when he, along with Justice Oliver Diaz was acquitted, and refusing to allow evidence from expert witnesses who could have shown that the judge’s decisions and rulings in the two earlier cases of so called bribery of judges John Whitfield and (Wes) Teel were exactly correct.
I had a high regard for Wingate when he was first appointed to the bench 25 years ago, but I do not anymore.
I hate to be so blunt.
Mr. Minor, it’s a tough deal when you find people close to you who you put trust in that have done wrong. For that, you have everyone’s sympathy. However, this was a proper investigation, indictment and conviction. Calling the trial judge ‘a tool’ is probably not very smart as your son is fighting on appeal. Your characterization of Wingate flies in the face of his distinguished judicial career on the bench. There being no real evidence to contradict the chain of events as listed in the indictment, your son was deemed guilty by a jury of his peers as was Byron de la Beckwith and Edgar Ray Killen. I am sure you took great pleasure in celebrating their just convictions. So, too, now do people celebrate the conviction of someone many believe to have improperty gamed the system . . . and it was someone who should know better or should have been taught better.
I hate to be so blunt.
Magnolia Tribune
