Patsy Brumfield has the story for the Daily Journal.
Zach Scruggs, convicted for his part in the scheme to bribe Circuit Judge Henry Lackey of Calhoun City, is out of federal prison and assigned to a community re-entry facility in Tupelo. An earlier report, which said he was in Montgomery, Ala., was not accurate. Inmates in the Tupelo center technically are under Montgomery’s jurisdiction, and that’s why on the Bureau of Prison’s web site it shows him there. His custody location is noted on www.bop.gov. Aug. 19 is his projected release date, the site shows.
Cheryl Dennings with BOP in Atlanta said Scruggs was moved Tuesday from a low-security prison in Forrest City, Ark. to Tupelo as he prepares to “transition” back into society. As soon as he finds a job and gets various other details approved, like driving a car, he will work away from the center and return each night.
Although an Internet site speculated Scruggs may have been seen in Oxford on Tuesday, Dennings said that wasn’t likely since she believes he was brought to Tupelo directly from Arkansas.
The just-us justice of north Mississippi challenges the meaning of “likely” on a regular basis. Today, for example, the Clarion Ledger is reporting the previously unlikely move of Judge Delaughter’s April trial to Oxford. Late yesterday, the Ledger reported the even more unlikely, but long suspected, grant of immunity to former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters.
So, while Peters and his immunity were lunching with the current DA, Sid Backstrom and his integrity remained confined in Arkansas – and some dare call it justice when it’s just-us.
Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage.
In that light, true justice emerges as those guilty of just-us justice serve a life sentence – forever confined by the limits of their small and narrow minds. Continue reading “Welcome back Zach!”