Insurance Law

Scruggs won't serve time in Panhandle prison due to fears he will air mail himself out of the country

By David Rossmiller

OK, I said blogging would resume July 22.  More like July 23.  Sorry for the delay, but the workload that was interfering with blogging has now eased, for the time being, sufficiently to allow for life's necessities -- such as blogging -- to resume. 

This story from Patsy Brumfield -- I had a sixth-grade teacher named Michelle Brumfield, I wonder if they are related somehow (that's typical of someone from North Dakota, we had so few people we figured everyone was related somehow) -- on Dickie Scruggs' not being assigned to a prison in the Florida Panhandle.  Scruggs is a former Navy flyer and famously has his expensive Air Scruggs ride, and apparently officials don't assign people to the prison if they have or have had a pilot's license. (Rumor has it his ride is so nice it is being featured in an upcoming episode of a new reality TV series, "Pimp My Escape Plane"). 

Question: where's he gonna go? Cuba? Is the fear that all of a sudden we'll see Dickie Scruggs wearing fatigues and smoking a cigar on a podium next to Fidel and Raul? Actually, it might solve the question of who is to become Fidel's successor: with his dough, Scruggs could instantly energize the Cuban economy.  With his ego, Scruggs could also instantly fit in as the ruler of a country, and let's face it, even Scruggs is bound to be an improvement on the Castros.  His first act as El Presidente would certainly be to file a massive class action lawsuit in Miami against State Farm, the U.S. Attorney's Office and Tim Balducci.

Fortunately, prison officials have thought this all through, and have come to the conclusion that while a guy who can fly is a great escape risk -- he might walk away from his job hoeing peas and sweet potatoes and steal a plane from a nearby military base, I guess -- a guy who can merely ride in a plane, boat or car is no threat at all. I mean, they've probably got all kinds of statistics that show the vast majority of people who escape from prisons do so by getting behind the controls of a conveniently parked nearby escape plane. Come to think of it, you ever been to Alcatraz and taken the tour, where they talk about that famous escape by the three guys who were never found? Of course they weren't found! Everyone was looking for them in the water. Instead, based on this new information, I'm thinking it's likely they went air mail. 

Of course, this new data means we must come up with a theme song for Scruggs' prison sentence, and after some thought, I believe there is only one choice: the gospel standard "I'll Fly Away."  I mean, it's got to be, doesn't it: "Like a bird from these prison wall I'll fly, I'll fly away/ No more cold iron shackles on my feet, I'll fly away." 

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).