Part 2 of Herring’s Kings of Tort review
The “sordid tale of judicial bribery and political intrigue” as related to us in “Kings of Tort” proves once again that fact is stranger than fiction and more gripping than any John Grisham novel. Throughout this notable book are many notable quotes which are worth remembering, for example:
1. “[W]hat I call the ‘magic jurisdiction…[is] where the judiciary is elected with verdict money….It’s almost impossible to get a fair trial if you’re a defendant in some of these places. The plaintiff lawyer walks in there and writes a number on the blackboard, and the first juror meets the last one coming out the door with that amount of money….The cases are not won in the courtroom. They’re won on the backroads long before the case goes to trial.”
– Excerpt from speech by Dickie Scruggs entitled “Asbestos for Lunch” – 2002.
Note: Federal Prosecutor Tom Dawson commented that this could be the first time in American Criminal Jurisprudence that a defendant confessed to his crime five years before he committed it.
Jim Herring
1/4/10
Magnolia Tribune
