The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an opinion on Friday overturning one of the main charges in the federal case against Mississippi trial attorney Paul Minor and judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel.
The three men were convicted on bribery and honest services fraud charges in 2007, in what many Minor supporters have called political prosecutions. In 2008, the Bush administration even opposed MInor's request to be released from prison long enough to visit his dying wife.
The Circuit Court began considering Minor’s appeal in May of this year. The three-judge panel expressed skepticism at the governments’ case during oral arguments.
Raw Story’s award-nominated series, The Permanent Republican Majority (see links below), %20http:/rawstory.com/news/2008/Justice_for_Sale_How_Big_Tobacco_0828.html">exposed some of the issues in the cases of Minor, Whitfield, and Teel, who were prosecuted starting in 2003 by a Bush-appointed US Attorney, along with former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, Jr.
On July 25, 2003, three months before the Mississippi gubernatorial election, in a case that would stun the legal community, Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz Jr., Paul Minor, former chancery court judge Wes Teel and former circuit court judge John Whitfield were indicted on charges of bribery, relating to loan guarantees that Minor had made to the three judges to help defray campaign costs.
Read on.
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