Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Congratulations Carlton Reeves!

It's official -- President Obama has nominated Carlton Reeves to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi.

Carlton is a fantastic guy and a serious lawyer. He'll make a GREAT District Judge.

Congrats to Carlton!

8 comments:

Kingfish said...

Hopefully he has learned to do a better job of copying and pasting.

Matt Eichelberger said...

No idea what you're talking about, KF.

Unknown said...

KF --- It's a wonder that anyone gives you any credibility at all. You beg and beg and beg for credit for your "finds," then you come in and take potshots like this and expect people to consider you a serious journalist/blogger? If you have some basis for the comment you made herein the show it and explain why it is relevant whatever it is. Otherwise, have some respect for others and they may in turn have some respect for you.

Jim Craig said...

I assume KF is referring to the opinion of Justices Dan Lee, Hawkins, and McRae in In re Thomson, 666 So.2d 464 (Miss. 1995). Those three Jusitces would have sanctioned Carlton Reeves and Frank Trapp over an interlocutory appeal petition which was drafted prior to a trial court proceeding, and hastily filed after the trial court had ruled. The trial court's rulings were not totally as expected by the lawyers, and so inadvertently had erroneous language. Those errors were, according to three other justices, showed "what can happen when attorneys get in a hurry during the heat of zealous advocacy in litigation."

The Court deadlocked 3-3 on whether to issue sanctions. The opinion of the three justices that voted against sanctions said, in part, "I cannot accept [the Dan Lee opinion's] reasoning nor am I willing to sanction these attorneys under the facts of this case, which constitute nothing more than a simple mistake by Reeves in his drafting of the language in paragraph three of Thomson's petition filed with this Court. There is a striking absence by these attorneys of any wilful attempt to deceive or mislead this Court, the lower court, or opposing counsel." Any lawyer worth a damn knows that Justice Jim Smith was right on the money in this statement.

The Dane Lee/Chuck McRae opinion in Thomson was one of the worst cheap shots in the mass tort battles in Mississippi. If Kingfish or the Senate Republicans want to use an opinion by Justice Dan Lee and Chuck McRae against Carlton Reeves, I hope they have the guts to admit who their "bedfellows" are.

Unknown said...

I'm a little disappointed, because I was hoping that Judge Graves would be nominated. Carlton is a perfectly fine, safe choice for the President. I am certain that his nomination will be successful.

Jim Craig said...

I have heard from a decently placed source that Justice Graves will be nominated for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. If so, that raises a new series of questions: who would Governor Barbour appoint to Justice Graves' position? Would the Governor think it important to have at least one African-American on the Mississippi Supreme Court? Recall that he replaced Justice Cobb with Justice Lamar.

Unknown said...

Jim- I've heard the same rumor re: Justice Graves. I don't know enough about the Central District to opine who should replace him on the Supreme Court, though.

willknowsbest said...

when in the world will new US Attorneys for MS be nominated and who will they be?