"Hot Coffee" Documents Chamber of Commerce Campaign to Unseat Judges Opposed to "Tort Reform"The documentary Hot Coffee tells the story of former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz. Despite fierce opposition from big business, Diaz won re-election to the bench. Hot Coffee reveals how Diaz was then criminally prosecuted on false charges to taint his reputation. He was forced off the bench for three years to fight the charges and was acquitted.
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/25/hot_coffee_documents_chamber_of_commerce
Video, transcript at link.
This is part of the Paul Minor case. Here's one of Scott Horton's run downs:
A Minor Injustice: Why Paul Minor? (10/0/07)
By Scott Horton
Bagging a Democrat
When it came to funding Democratic candidates and causes, prominent Mississippi trial lawyer Paul Minor was a go-to guy. He was a major donor to Democratic candidates for office, and he was against tort reform and staunchly opposed limiting injury awards. Between 2001 and 2004, Minor and his law firm donated over $100,000 to a range of Democratic causes, from the John Edwards campaign, to the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to the Democratic National Committee.1 Thus in 2002, when FBI agents began looking into the campaign funding sources of Mississippi judges, Minor’s name surfaced in connection with a loan he had guaranteed to help Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz secure a loan for election finance.
Ultimately, Minor was convicted of honest services mail fraud on September 7, 2007. He was charged with having helped Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver E. Diaz, Jr., and his family secure loans to fuel Diaz’s election campaign by providing personal guarantees. Minor also allowed Diaz to use an apartment he owned.2
As the investigation began, a survey of local newspapers–particularly the Jackson Clarion-Ledger–shows that Minor and his fellow targets were under heavy assault. The local press began to print articles laden with innuendo and smear, and articles appeared accusing Minor of “corruption” based on information that was consistently sources to anonymous “sources close to the investigation.” As a practical matter this could only have come from the prosecution team. And the timing of the leaks–for instance in 2003, when Haley Barbour returned to Mississippi ready to recapture the statehouse for the G.O.P.–seemed to coincide with Republican campaign strategy. The leaks served a double purpose, however: they “poisoned the well” by predisposing the newspaper-reading citizenry to think that Minor and his colleagues were guilty; and they furnished essential fodder for the G.O.P. election effort in which high profile and prominent Democrats were constantly labeled “corrupt.” The prosecution’s case aligned with the G.O.P.’s Mississippi election strategy on another score: intimidate and dry up the trial lawyer campaign contributions which were the life’s blood of the Mississippi Democratic Party.
The Charges
The actual charges filed were almost incomprehensible. Several public integrity prosecutors with whom I conferred told me they were unfamiliar of any similar case raising charges quite like these. They were called “strange,” and “perhaps unique.” Most public corruption cases revolve on a quid pro quo: a public official is asked to do something for some form of compensation or reward. But in these cases there is no quid pro quo, and none is ever alleged. As the New York Times’s Adam Liptak observed:
The central charge against the two men is so convoluted that setting it out requires a diagram, if not a family tree: trying to influence a libel case against Mr. Minor’s father, Mr. Minor guaranteed a loan to Justice Diaz’s former wife.
Here's my take.3 But I'll give you the short version: honest service mail fraud is an effort to conjure a crime which does not exist. The “crime” here is purely political.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001343
And here's the most recent news articles I can find on Paul Minor:
Jan 18: Minor to re-argue innocence in appeals court, prosecutors say bribery is basis of convictions
By ANITA LEE - calee@sunherald.com
http://www.sunherald.com/2011/01/15/2780894/minor-to-re-argue-innocence-in.html#ixzz1F0VPz9Up
Jan 18: Sentencing Postponed For Paul Minor, 2 Ex-Judges
http://www.wapt.com/r/26530515/detail.html
It looks like this political prisoner of GWB is still behind bars.
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