Here we go! Patsy Brumfield, who isn’t noise, had a short story up on NEMS360.com:
Zach Scruggs wants Senior U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. to reconsidering allowing him to seek new evidence related to his 2008 conviction.
The new evidence, Scruggs insists in a motion filed Wednesday, did not exist when he pleaded guilty and went to prison for knowing about an illegal conversation between then-New Albany attorney Timothy Balducci and Circuit Judge Henry Lackey.
This text from the Motion is significant and, IMO, should be read before the “lacunae” (a gap or place where something is missing, e.g. in a line of argument) or the discussion of “the new evidence that did not exist” when Zach entered his plea: (The Motion with all Exhibits, 119-pages total, follows below in Scribd format.)
Even with these lacunae, it bears emphasis that after all the facts were put on the table, it became clear to the Government that Petitioner was innocent of any involvement in bribery, and those charges were voluntarily dismissed. At that time, the Government repeatedly represented to this Court orally and in the Factual Basis that “all the facts and circumstances” of this petitioner’s conduct amounted to mere earwigging, not bribery. Plea Hearing Tr. 3/21/208 at 8 (Mr. Sanders), Sentencing Hearing Tr., 7/2/08 at 5 (Mr. Dawson). The purpose of much of the Petitioner’s propounded discovery is to discern what factual basis exists for the Government now to say the opposite.
Amazingly, it was in reading prosecutor Tom Dawson’s book that Zach learned of “new evidence” giving cause to open Discovery. (I wonder if Judge Biggers learned something new, too, assuming he read the book)
Langston and Farese made a desperate pitch for immunity, offering to testify against Scruggs in the Delaughter case. They argued that the value of Langston’s testimony would cause Scruggs’s collapse in both cases, resulting in guilty pleas. The specter of Scruggs’s own lawyer testifying against him would be insurmountable. (Petition Exh. C., at 188.) Continue reading “Zach files Motion for Reconsideration – will the usual noise from north Mississippi follow?”