This is apparently the week for the district judges in the Northern District of Mississippi to remind folks that the defendants in the Scruggs case haven’t exactly been honest with those courts. First, Judge Davidson made clear he thought Joey Langston had lied in denying a bribe in the Scruggs II hearing. Second, Judge Biggers explains why he’s denying Sid Backstrom’s motion for an early end to his supervised release:
The Court finds that the defendant herein has not been forthcoming with the court on two occasions after his plea of guilty, one time at his sentencing hearing and another time at a §2255 hearing concerning a co-defendant.
If these folks keep asking the judges who sat in these cases for their two cents, it’s going to be really hard for them to establish and sustain a version of the story that suggests they really didn’t commit any crimes.
Here’s the order.
I’m not up to date on these various post-conviction wranglings. What was Backstrom not forthcoming about?
Judge Biggers felt that Backstrom had promised (at guilty plea0 to come clean and did not, particularly about Zach’s role, and most particularly testifying about it at the hearing where Zach was trying to set aside his plea. At the sentencing, he was not straight about having been forthcoming to the US Attorney between plea and sentencing.
Have any of them been straight with the Court about anything?
Not that I’ve noticed, except for Balducci.
Is there anyone that could possibly explain the first rule of holes to these people?
And most certainly, the word shame appears to not even remotely be in their vocabulary.
Those people–Scruggs, Scruggs, Langston, Balducci, Peters, Patterson, et al.–may live in worlds of rounded corners, but corners square off sharply within the walls of the United States District Court, Northern District of Mississippi.
NMC, why does your name sometime show up as “NMC” and at others as “NMissC” when giving a comment or reply? Are we safe to assume that comments from both of these “names” are from one and the same person?
Just wondering…..
it’s a login issue, sorry about any confusion. both are the same person.
These men are more arrogant than stupid. They appear, to me, to have gotten good advice — and followed it — when their pleas were entered. They got amazing leniency from the federal courts at sentencing, then appear to have lapsed into the same denial and grandiosity that led to their downfalls, initially, when each decided to initiate and participate in all these ludicrous post-plea gyrations. Each of them should read Article III — these federal judges are appointed for life for several reasons, one of which is to make them resistant to political or other improper pressure to decide matters before them upon any basis other than their merits.
I felt sure it was you both times, but as non-technocrat, was just noticing the difference and didnt know how it worked. Glad to know you don’t have a split personality.
What are these people [Balducci and Backstrom] doing for a living? Saw where Patterson is vacationing in Europe. Of course, the Scruggs are just clipping coupons I guess.