Judicial Corruption: Minor Infractions Compared to Alabama
While Balch & Bingham may foolishly believe all of their contributions and affiliated PAC donations to Judge Carole Smitherman and her husband State Senator Rodger Smitherman were legal, proper campaign contributions, scrutiny of behind the scenes conduct by corrupt judges is growing.
Nashville, Tennessee NBC affiliate WSMV reported yesterday:
Before former … Judge Casey Moreland was sentenced to prison last year on corruption charges, he gave a two-day interview to the FBI and federal prosecutors. One of the topics Moreland covered, according to court documents, was Moreland’s trips to Costa Rica with friends.
According to sentencing documents written by federal prosecutors, Moreland said attendees hired local prostitutes and sometimes smoked marijuana in Costa Rica. The court documents do not identify which attendees allegedly engaged in that conduct. The US Attorney’s office wrote in court documents that Moreland’s Costa Rica travel with the attorneys who appeared before him in court not only “violate the Tennessee Code of Judicial Conduct, it helped foster an atmosphere of cronyism and favoritism in Moreland’s courtroom,” saying that “attendees possessed compromising information on Moreland, as he did on them.”
Moreland was sentenced to 44-months in federal prison last year.
Also yesterday, a second West Virginia Supreme Court Justice was sentenced. The Associated Press reported:
A former West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals justice was sentenced Wednesday to three years’ probation for using a state vehicle and gas-fuel card for a golf trip to Virginia. Menis Ketchum’s sentencing in federal court came at the end of a yearlong impeachment and corruption scandal involving the Supreme Court that resulted in significant changes to the state’s judicial system, including the five-member court’s makeup.
Ketchum, 76, who pleaded guilty last year to a felony fraud count, also was fined $20,000 and ordered to pay $749 in restitution. “I’m just plain guilty,” Ketchum told U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. before sentencing. “And I’m sorry, but sorry’s no excuse.”
The secretive and unconstitutional Star Chamber in the Newsome Conspiracy Case could become the center of criminal firestorm after a federal civil RICO lawsuit is filed. Indeed cronyism and favoritism appear to have been fostered in the Star Chamber allegedly all for Balch & Bingham’s benefit.
Although a junket to Biloxi is much different than a golf trip to Virginia or sexcapade to Costa Rica, the parallels are frighteningly similar, except maybe for the bong hits and women of ill repute.
Memo to the Smithermans: be ready to put on your seat belts for a wondrous ride courtesy of your favorite cronies at Balch & Bingham.
