SH – Judge: Scruggs letters public record

Judge: Scruggs letters public record

Letters asking for leniency for lawyer Dickie Scruggs and two others soon to be sentenced for conspiracy to bribe a state judge will be made public, a federal judge ruled today.

U.S. District Judge Neal B. Biggers Jr. said the newspaper’s motion was “well taken,” and that he had not received any objections to the documents being made public.

He cited as precedent a 2002 case involving McClatchy Newspapers, the Sun Herald’s parent company. In that case, the Ninth Circuit had found a court in error for refusal to unseal letters submitted by a defendant wanting to reduce his criminal sentence.

Sun Herald
6/20/8