LaLaRawRaw's 'Permanent Republican Majority' investigative series Part 7. Links to the previous parts of the series can be found at the Raw Story link:http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/24/justice-for-sale-how-big-tobacco-teamed-up-with-the-gop-to-crush-democrats-in-the-south"Big tobacco had finally accomplished its goals through the use of the political machine."
Justice for Sale: How Big Tobacco and the GOP teamed up to crush Democrats in the SouthBy Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane | Uncategorized | Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Almost immediately after his appointment as US Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi in late 2001, Dunnica Lampton began to investigate key Mississippi Democrats.
Trial lawyer and major Democratic campaign contributor Paul Minor (photo at right) quickly became a target of such an investigation. Minor, one of the largest Democratic donors in the South and the largest in Mississippi, would quickly find himself in the midst of a political firing line.
On July 25, 2003, three months before the Mississippi gubernatorial election, in a case that would stun the legal community, Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., Paul Minor, former chancery court judge Wes Teel and former circuit court judge John Whitfield were indicted on charges of bribery, relating to loan guarantees that Minor had made to the three judges to help defray campaign costs.
There was no state law prohibiting Minor’s contributions, and his trial resulted in an acquittal on some charges and a deadlocked jury on others. However, this trial was immediately followed by the unsealing of fresh charges.
During the second trial, presiding Judge Henry Wingate excluded evidence showing that Minor had a long-established pattern of offering loans or loan guarantees to his friends in the legal community, thus creating the appearance that Minor had helped the three judges in hopes of receiving something in return.
Although prosecutors were unable to prove that Minor had bribed the judges in exchange for favors from the bench, the second trial resulted in a conviction. The jury determined that a quid pro quo had taken place between Minor and two of the judges, Teel and Whitfield, in large part because Judge Wingate had instructed them it was not necessary for the prosecution to prove bribery.
Even thought no quid pro quo was proven and there was no state law prohibiting lawyers from making loan guarantees to judges, Minor was sentenced to serve an 11-year prison term and pay over $4 million in fines and restitution.
In a startling similarity to the case of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman — who was also targeted by a Bush-appointed US Attorney — Minor has been denied appeal bond. Both Siegelman and Minor, despite being convicted of white-collar, non-violent crimes, were shackled and manacled, and moved to out-of-state prisons. (See Part I of this series)
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has since released Siegelman as he appeals his case.
In Part V of Raw Story Investigates’ ongoing probe of political prosecutions by Bush appointed US Attorneys, Mississippi State Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, who himself was indicted and acquitted twice in the Paul Minor case, asserted that this new style of Bush justice meant defendants were presumed guilty from the start.
“An individual was singled out for examination from the federal government, and prosecutors then attempted to make his conduct fit into some criminal statute,” Diaz said. “This is not how our system of justice is supposed to operate.”
The beginning: Big TobaccoThe tortuous trail to Paul Minor’s jailing begins in the 1990s, with the set of history-making cases brought against the tobacco industry by states seeking to recover smoking-related health costs. Minor was among those representing the plaintiffs. He joined numerous other trial lawyers and state attorneys general, including Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore.
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The US Attorney scandal as it unfolded in the South might best be understood as a two-part strategy that simultaneously served both the corporate sponsors of Southern Republicans and the politicians to whom they contributed. One aspect of this two-pronged strategy can be seen as a bribery scandal, in which corporate interests received government favors as a corollary to campaign donations.
In Alabama, the corporate client was the gambling industry. Its lobbyist was the now-convicted felon Jack Abramoff, who brokered deals and funneled money to Republican congressional coffers. Although the money came in from neighboring Mississippi, the issue for Abramoff’s gambling clients was a proposed state lottery that Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was promoting. The gambling industry flooded Republican coffers in exchange for other types of favors, such as the loosening of gambling industry oversight.
In Mississippi, the corporate client was big tobacco — and their chief lobbyist now sits in the Mississippi governor’s chair.
The demonizing of Democratic candidates instigated by the federal government helped both the Riley campaign in Alabama and the Barbour campaign in Mississippi. Until these prosecutions, both states were led by Democratic governors.
In addition, by targeting Paul Minor, Barbour and his backers ensured a glacial freeze in contributions to Democratic candidates, since other Democratic trial lawyers were afraid of being targeted by the US Attorney’s office as well.
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Family tragedyPaul Minor has been in prison for nearly two years, since the judge ruled in Sept. 2006 that he had violated the terms of his bond by drinking excessively and not abiding by terms of his house arrest. During that time, his wife Sylvia’s breast cancer has spread to her brain and spine. According to family and friends, Mrs. Minor has now had all of her medications stopped except for pain management drugs, indicating that she is in the last stages of her illness.
Minor had started drinking as a result of the two prosecutions and the mounting costs of his legal defense, although he admits it’s been a life-long battle. During the second trial, Minor’s wife Sylvia developed breast cancer. The stress of the personal tragedy and the trials, say those close to Minor, caused him to drink. Wingate ruled that Minor’s drinking was a violation of his bond.
Mrs. Minor’s health has since deteriorated severely. Bill Minor, Paul Minor’s father, who is a well-respected former correspondent for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and a political columnist for the Clarion-Ledger, says that his daughter-in-law has taken a bad turn.
Joseph Morris Doss, Bishop of the Episcopal Church and the Minor family’s pastor and friend, confirmed that Mrs. Minor was no longer being administered medications other than those for pain management.
“She is not doing well,” the bishop said last week. “The cancer has spread from her breasts, to her brain, to her spine, and a mass on the outside of her lung. She is no longer receiving medication for any of the cancer, only for pain and discomfort.”
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