Scruggs to fight conviction

Published 7:30 am Monday, March 26, 2012

OXFORD (AP) — Imprisoned former attorney Richard “Dickie” Scruggs will ask a judge today to vacate his conviction and the seven-year sentence he received after pleading guilty to trying to influence then Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in federal court in Oxford before U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson.

Scruggs is serving a seven-year sentence. He pleaded guilty in 2008 to one count of depriving the citizens of Mississippi of honest services from DeLaughter.

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Scruggs has argued that the limits imposed by the U.S. Supreme Court on so-called honest services fraud mean no juror would today convict him of the crime to which he pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors insist Scruggs broke the law when he promised to recommend DeLaughter for a federal judgeship.