Nice to see a judge taking a stand for open records. The Sun-Herald reported:
Chancery Judge Jennifer Schloegel on Monday denied Attorney General Jim Hood's request to set aside her May ruling that the DMR and State Auditor's Office willfully violated the Public Records Act, warranting sanctions against Hood, Auditor Stacey Pickering and assistant attorneys general involved.
The State Auditor's Office is appealing Schloegel's ruling to the Mississippi Supreme Court. On behalf of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, Attorney General Jim Hood asked Schoegel to reconsider.
Private attorneys are now defending Pickering and his investigators, the auditor's office, the DMR and the assistant attorneys general. Hood is represented by Special Assistant Attorney General Margaret Parish Ellis....
Hood's request, Schloegel wrote, amounted to "an effort to split hairs" and only reinforced her belief that Hood and his assistant attorneys' general engaged in "manipulative legal maneuvering" from the start.
The Sun Herald fought in court for 17 months for DMR business records. Schloegel ruled at the end of a trial that the records were public because they had not been compiled during the course of an auditor's criminal investigation of DMR, as claimed by Pickering and assistant attorneys general representing both agencies..... Rest of article
8 comments:
Private attorneys are now defending the Assistant Attorneys General. The AAG's are the ones who write the AG's opinions. That doesn't give much confidence in the AG's office or opinions, does it?
I just hope the actions of Stacey Pickering in these matters follow him throughout his entire political career. He decided not to collect/recover millions of dollars misspent by the looters at the Ms.DMR and related CONprofits. Must be the special Family and Friends program Pickering spoke about.
They have to use outside independent counsel to prevent conflicts under the Rules of Professional Conduct.
"The AAG's are the ones who write the AG's opinions."
When has it been otherwise?
"manipulative legal maneuvering"....I thought that's waht lawyers got paid to do
The taxpayers continue to loose and pay.The AG's office is paying thousands of dollars to private attorneys over $100 fines. On top of that we are paying for the Sunherald attorney fees to access public information we paid to assemble. These politicians try to act as if they are doing what is right when in reality this has been nothing more than a cover up protecting people that are yet to be named. Most know who they are.
Now something smells really fishy..... after all the investigative work that was done on DMR and all the manpower that was put into this......why in the hell would Stacey Pickering not want to recover mispent dollars from white collar thugs? Hhhmmmmm.
What motive would Pickering have to not mandate that these thieves not pay back our hard earned tax dollars? .....federal money or state funding....it comes out of my pocket and I pay a hell of a lot!
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