Insurance Law

Scruggs Nation: June 26, the pre-sentencing

By David Rossmiller

I've been reading some of the excerpts from the treasure trove of letters asking the Court for leniency in the Scruggs sentencing tomorrow.  And after reading them, I've had a change of heart.  You know what I say?  He's suffered enough, just let him go! I mean, lighten up a little here, let's not get all harsh, let's not go all Torquemada on the dude!  Just kidding.  And now back to reality.

Here's a link to the Sun Herald story with the excerpts -- you remember it was the Sun Herald who did the quick thinking and filed a motion with Judge Biggers asking to see the letters in the public interest. 

My overall impression: about what I expected.   Scruggs has done a lot of good things for certain people, I'm sure, although I don't find that very relevant to what is going on with his sentencing.  As with most folks with a lot of dough or power, it's not hard to find any number of people to swear what a great guy he is.  It's funny how that works.  When I started practicing law, one of the partners at the firm I was with told me how becoming a partner was a real self-improvement for him: he got more attractive, his jokes were funnier, he became wiser -- and the strange thing is that the longer he was a partner the more true this was!  He said he hated to go home sometimes, because for some strange reason they were out of step there and never laughed at his jokes and they never were amazed at his wisdom. A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, I guess. 

About leniency for Scruggs, I would say this -- a five-year maximum sentence already seems pretty lenient, considering he participated in a scheme to bribe a judge, and that he is a lawyer.  You know, the cost of monitoring everybody is just too high, to a great degree the legal system or any system doesn't work unless people behave themselves, unless they are willing to accept that the system is more important than their individual needs or desires. Engaging in corruption of the legal system, the same system you use as a backdrop for your claims of great beneficence and altruism, isn't really excused by scattering checks along the way like a trail of bread crumbs for the birds to follow on the way to your sentencing.

I see that a number of people cited Scruggs' tobacco litigation as a reason to take it easy on him -- as if firmly entrenching a rent-seeking cigarette cartel that is impervious to competition or destruction as long as it pays its annual tax to attorneys general and plaintiffs' lawyers is some noble accomplishment.   There were some touching stories, such as the one about Scruggs paying funeral expenses.  Again, almost everyone has their good side, but Scruggs isn't being sentenced for the crime of being a monster, he's being sentenced for bribery.  Merely because he has done good for some doesn't mean the bribery or the danger that poses to the legal system goes away. 

As a Shakespeare fan, I took special interest in this excerpt from one of the letters: 

"Recall William Shakespeare's famous words in the play Julius Caesar: 'The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.' Nevertheless, Dick's failing does not change all the good he had done and the enormous credit he deserves for changing so many people's lives for the better."

Interesting.  This is taken from Mark Antony's funeral oration, of course, and Antony, although he said he came to bury Caesar, not to praise him, intended to do exactly the opposite of what he said.  The implication of the line is that the conspirators who killed Caesar buried a lot of good with him, and what's more, that this "evil that men do" may be the assassination of Caesar itself, not Caesar's illegal usurpation of power.  Is this line apropos in these circumstances?  Scruggs, at the max, only goes away for five years, and he's unlikely to be flogged daily and fed on thin gruel and weevil-infested bread.  And after he gets out, he still has all that dough to keep on doing all that good to make sure it isn't interred with his bones.  Also, there was no conspiracy to get Scruggs here -- he Scruggsed himself.  If ever one has gotten enormous credit for "changing so many people's lives for the better," it is Scruggs, the master of media manipulation.  It's not about whether Scruggs is an angel or a Hitler -- it's just about paying the piper.    

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on June 26, 2008 (boomark / email).