earwig Oh, had we known to be down in Oxford, Miss., today! Alas, we’ve tried to make up for our absence by tracking down the transcripts of both Dickie Scruggs’s and Sid Backstrom’s plea hearings, which get you inside the action, at least a bit. (Click here for Scruggs’s and here for Backstrom’s.)

Highlights:

A Bribe? No! An Earwig!: At one point, the following colloquy broke out between Scruggs and Judge Neal Biggers:

THE COURT : All right. Mr. Scruggs, then, did you do what the prosecutor just said you did, as far as your acts in this charge are concerned?

THE DEFENDANT : I joined the conspiracy later in the game. It’ s not exactly as the prosecutor allocuted, in that there was no intent to bribe the judge; it was an intent to earwig the judge, Judge Lackey; and that that - - the earwigging idea was not originated by me or anyone in our firm, although we went along with it, at the beginning of - - sometime in March.

We’re not sure if it’s a regional thing or a generational thing, but we had no idea what this meant. Turns out, it makes sense. According to Merriam-Webster, the word has two definitions.

1: earwig, n,: any of numerous insects (order Dermaptera) having slender many-jointed antennae and a pair of cerci resembling forceps at the end of the body (pictured);

2. earwig, v: to annoy or attempt to influence by private talk.

The Nagging DeLaughter Problem: Keep in mind, Law Blog Loyals, the in the midst of the situation with Judge Lackey and Scruggs, another bribery allegation emerged, one involving Hinds County Judge Bobby DeLaughter.

Quick recap: In the early 1990s, two former partners of Scruggs, Alwyn Luckey and William Roberts Wilson Jr., sued Scruggs over attorneys fees earned in asbestos litigation. After years of litigation in the fee dispute, the case was assigned to Mississippi judge Bobby DeLaughter. Early last year, shortly after Scruggs hired Booneville, Miss., laywer Joey Langston to work on the case, Judge DeLaughter made a key ruling in Scruggs’s favor.

A couple of months ago, Joey Langston agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to bribe Judge DeLaughter, with the promise that Scruggs would pass the judge’s name along for a federal judgeship.

Scruggs has not been indicted in the DeLaughter case, but federal prosecutors were all set to use evidence in the DeLaughter case in the Lackey case.

In today’s hearing, prosecutor Thomas Dawson hinted that Scruggs might not have seen the last of the DeLaughter situation:

I want to make it painfully clear that the investigation with respect to the Wilson matter that is currently under investigation - - that this plea agreement and this plea has no affect with respect to any charging decision or subsequent prosecution with respect to that case.

In other words, Dickie’s legal troubles might not be over.