Scruggs' Lawyers Want Change of Venue - Blame LOCAL Blogs

Defense attorneys for Dickie Scruggs have been flooding the courts with motions.  One of them is for a change of venue, reports Walter Olson of Overlawyered.com, to a federal court outside Mississippi.  Their argument?  Local weblogs - that is, blogs like this one which are usually global in reach - have been poisoning the potential jury pool.

This is what the motion states:

"The print media blitz has been supplemented by Mississippi-based web logs (blogs) that report, in excruciating detail, every event in the prosecution and defense of the the Scruggs criminal case, the criminal contempt case against Scruggs in Alabama, the recently-dismissed State Farm case against Attorney General Hood and the various cases in which State Farm has sought Scrugg's [sic]testimony."

There's more in the motion.  There's whining, for example, about blog coverage of the Scruggs' Christmas party [count me guilty since I detailed that].

Clearly these smart, shrewd defense attorneys must be hitting the panic button.  For one thing, blogs have a global reach.  Even if the trial were held in China, the jury pool would know plenty about All The King's Men. 

Secondly, most of the blog coverage, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Law Blog and mine included, were caught up with the juicy - read that, non-material - stuff such as could Scruggs use his private jet to facilitate his defense. 

Third, the events, decisions and facts relating to the possible content of the upcoming trials were contained in essentially one blog.  And it wasn't composed in MISS.  That blog www.insurancecoverageblog.com was and still is based in Portland, Oregon and written by David Rossmiller.  Way before any indictments happened, Rossmiller was compulsively tracking down information about the Katrina lawsuits and Scruggs' role in those.  For the legal machinations many of us bloggers piggyback on Rossmiller's reporting.

Some contend, including the media who interviewed me about Scruggs' legal problems, that there hasn't been enough publicity on all this.  In fact, a radio talk-show host in MISS told me a few weeks ago that gradually locals are becoming interested in the Scruggs' indictment story and the implications for MISS politics.

Reflection: In the landmark Rhode Island Lead Paint Public Nuisance Trial II, if the plaintiff or defendants are granted the new trials which they both request, for different reasons, will those lawyers request a change of venue because of this blog?  China won't do since just about every post on lead paint is being translated into Mandarin.