Insurance Law

More on Hood interview on MPB

By David Rossmiller

Is it just about over, the Jim Hood Self-Destruction Tour? I mean, we are all on his back to talk when he fell silent in the wake of the Scruggs indictment, but now it looks like Quiet Jim knew better than Chatty Jim.  This new strategy of talking to the media? Not working.  When is one of Hood's people going to put an arm on his shoulder, take him aside and say, "Jimbo, we're going need you to make some changes here.  What we're picturing is kind of an immediate transition from this jabber-jaws thing where you keep on stepping in it out in public and hurting yourself and us, and going more to a kind of a deal where you go back to hiding in your office with the phone turned off and the curtains shut. "   

I listened to the MPB interview again a couple of times. Let's take a closer look at some of Hood's statements.  

"There was a problem with the element of proof, and there was no need to try and indict State Farm." 

A problem with the element of proof?  What was the problem with the proof, there wasn't any?  Then Hood had no reason to begin his second grand jury investigation in July 2007, after he had signed the non-prosecution agreement (the violation of which, as you remember, resulted in the embarrassing debacle of the State Farm lawsuit and injunction against him, and a defeat so crushing it apparently goaded him to cease his silence and go on the comedy club circuit).

"State Farm was the snake in all this."

What is this, Aesop's Fables?  If State Farm was the snake, what was Hood, Deputy Dawg?

"If my good friend Mike Moore, who I've known for years, was unable to influence me to sign off on this federal class action, then nobody else was  . . . ."

How did Moore try to influence him, and why did Moore care?

That decision not to prosecute them was made, as it should be, without any influence, without any regard to any civil cases . . . .  

I made their [State Farm's] chief lawyer out of Bloomington meet me in Memphis is when we negotiated it . . . so for two, three weeks, maybe even a month in that time period, I wasn't talking to any of them[Scruggs and his people]."

Wait a minute, the first quote says Hood didn't make the decision to settle the criminal prosecution until he heard from his investigator at the grand jury  that there were no grounds for indictments.  So why was he involved in negotiations with State Farm before that time?

This interview was incredibly lame, a lot of unasked questions.  Like a simple one.  If what Hood says is true, why was he so upset when the federal class action didn't go through? This, as you remember, has been cited by Hood again and again as a breach of the agreement with him that justified Hood's own breach of the non-prosecution agreement.  If dropping the criminal prosecution was not an exchange for what Scruggs wanted -- the settlement of 640 Katrina cases and the certification and immediate settlement of a class action -- then why did Hood care when the class action didn't happen after Judge Senter shot it down? 

I am a former professional journalist, and I'm a very good interviewer.  AG Hood, I issued this invitation once before and I'll say it again, let's do a comprehensive interview, I'll have it recorded and put on this blog word for word.  Just give me a call to arrange it.

One final thing: did you notice he went the whole interview without mentioning once that Courtney Schloemer told him to do something? Also, have you noticed that Hood has had very little to nothing to say about the confidential settlement in the State Farm v. Hood case lately?  For a while, all Hood could do is talk about how he supposedly got the case thrown out and the allegations declared false -- contrary to all reason and evidence -- until that Sheila Birnbaum accidental e-mail that talked of trying to tag him with contempt of court.  Since then, seems like he's recovered his balance on that subject. 

UPDATE: I thought this was a very good post on Y'all Politics on Hood.   Kind of walks you through Hood's non-stop self-pummelling.  In other news, I hear Hood's media escapades have led to a new unofficial policy in the Attorney General's office -- every Friday is now Fiasco Friday, where it's OK to beclown yourself and make a complete shambles of everything you undertake.  A sort of a Fool For A Day policy.

Full post as published by Insurance Coverage Law Blog on February 29, 2008 (boomark / email).