Johnny-Come-Lately Don't Know Much About History: Why Judge Buffington Was Right

I have to laugh (smiling isn't enough) at the conservatives who are SO up in arms about Chancellor Larry Buffington's appointment of former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz to a post as Simpson County Youth Court Defender.

For example, a "Simpson County resident" named Tom Bruckner has announced that he is filing a complaint with the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance against Chancellor Buffington. The right-wing (but highly entertaining) blog Y'all Politics reports Brucker's screed verbatim here:

http://yallpolitics.com/index.php/yp/post/simpson_county_resident_to_file_complaint_against_judge_larry_buffington/#When:16:38:00Z

Among other things, Bruckner says:

I attended the Board of Supervisors meeting in Simpson County on February 11 and feel obligated to make a formal complaint against Judge Larry Buffington. His actions warranted a complaint when he used his power as a judge to make an unnecessary appointment, just so one of his friends could earn state retirement.

Put aside for the moment that Judicial Performance complaints are supposed to be confidential (a requirement honored in the breach more than the observance).

ALSO put aside this writer's experience that the Commission never targets judges in the "in" group, and has a history of racially disproportionate prosecutions.

My question today is simple: where, oh where, have Citizen Bruckner and Y'all Politics been? Many of us have, FOR YEARS, attempted to change the system which allows local judges to appoint their public defenders. It creates a situation where the defender feels more obligated to the judge(s) than to his or her own client.

The most recent example has been the debacle with the Mississippi Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel under the leadership of former director Robert Ryan. The Mississippi Supreme Court had originally appointed Jack Williams from Oxford to head that office. But when Williams insisted on having sufficient time to prepare capital post-conviction petitions, then Chief Justice Edwin Lloyd Pittman fired Williams and appointed Ryan (without ever advertising for other applicants).

Think Ryan got the message? He filed numerous post-conviction petitions that merely copied and pasted from the prisoner's prior appeals, attached hearsay affidavits from investigators and paralegals instead of from the witnesses they interviewed, fired pro bono investigators who had found real evidence of mental illness and instead filed spurious mental retardation claims without evidence, and in a case where the client WAS mentally retarded, rested his case without calling a psychologist or other mental health expert. "Just going through the motions" doesn't begin to cover it. "Good enough for government work?" Not.

Note: the JFP story I wrote about the execution of Earl Berry, and Ryan's woeful work, is at http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/comments/the_execution_of_earl_wesley_berry/

The JFP's Ronni Mott did her own excellent reporting on the subject of MOCPCC:http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/dereliction_of_duty_070908/

Did Y'all Politics say ANYTHING about the fact that Ryan evidently cared more about pleasing the Chief Justice who could hire and fire him, than about his clients' welfare? Did Citizen Bruckner? If they did, I didn't see or hear it.

Another example: under Governor Kirk Fordice (of all people), the Mississippi Legislature created a State Public Defender Commission, which was charged to implement a statewide public defender system with the lawyers appointed by a neutral, non-political, non-judicial body. Just think: lawyers for indigent defendants appointed on the basis of merit, not by fear or favor. The PROSECUTORS Association howled after the bill was passed, and succeeded in having it repealed the next session (under Governor Musgrove).

Did the conservatives complain then? I was there, and unless I'm deaf, I didn't hear it.

So clearly, then, our Johnny-Come-Lately Citizen Bruckner and his favorite red-meat blog don't care about neutral appointments of indigent defenders. They're just trying to gore the ox of their choice.

On the other hand, if Citizen Bruckner means what he says, maybe he could persuade his legislators to re-institute the Public Defender Commission. I'm sure Y'all Politics will endorse the idea . . . right?

Until that day comes (watch for the tell-tale outdoor hockey rinks in Hades), Judge Buffington has the prerogative to appoint the lawyer(s) of his choice to be youth court public defenders.

And it seems to me that a former Supreme Court Justice is more than qualified for the post.

Uncle Tom's Courtroom

Folo collects two stories about the new Assistant District Attorney in Lafayette County:

http://www.folo.us/2009/01/24/colorful-court-talk-in-oxford/

Tom Levidiotis was formerly the part-time Public Defender in that county. He was also formerly a staff attorney at the Mississippi Office of Post-Conviction Counsel (MOCPCC), toward the end of the years that Robert Ryan was Executive Director. Ryan's tenure marked some of the most shameful mis-representation of clients that has ever been seen in Mississippi death penalty jurisprudence.

Note: the JFP story I wrote about the execution of Earl Berry, and Ryan's woeful work, is at
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/comments/the_execution_of_earl_wesley_berry/

The JFP's Ronni Mott did her own excellent reporting on the subject of MOCPCC:
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/site/comments/dereliction_of_duty_070908/

But back to the land of Faulkner. Folo connects us to the Oxford Eagle's website (http://www.oxfordeagle.com/archives/2009/0109/011909-012309/012309/news1.html), where we experience this bit of courtroom drama:

The trial against the man accused of murdering University of Mississippi track star Rodney Lockhart has been postponed for an undetermined amount of time after the state announced it would be seeking additional charges against Christian Bonner during a pre-trial hearing Thursday.

Bonner was indicted for capital murder in December 2007 for allegedly shooting Lockhart in the head on Sept. 29, 2007, during a robbery.His trial has been postponed several times. The case was set for trial Monday, but Bonner’s attorney, Kevin Camp of Jackson, filed a motion asking for a continuance because he had other trials pending in Jackson.

* * * *

[Circuit Judge] Howorth said he would continue the case for a short period of time but was interrupted by Assistant District Attorney Tom Levidiotis who announced the state’s intent to supersede the indictment with new charges — which apparently took everyone by surprise. What the exact charges are or whether they were related to the state seeking the death penalty against Bonner were not being released by the District Attorney’s Office.

The state had announced last year it was not seeking the death penalty in the case, but Thursday Levidiotis hinted that could change and that decision would be up to the grand jury on Feb. 9 — not the state.“If the grand jury says that Mr. Bonner needs killin’ then by God, I will prosecute it that way,” he said in court.

Of course, as an experienced criminal lawyer should know, the grand jury does NOT decide whether the defendant in a capital case "needs killin." It is the prosecutor's prerogative to seek either death or life without parole when a grand jury indicts a defendant for capital murder.

One wonders whether this latter-day "Uncle Tom" had this much killer instinct when he was supposed to be defending capital murder defendants. Maybe that explains the poor performance of MOCPCC?

Too bad the original Uncle Tom didn't have this one's flexibility. He would have enlisted in the Confederate Army.