With all of the responses in to the Mississippi Supreme Court, it’s time to start sorting out what exactly happened.  The responses are lacking, but we endeavor to distill truth and fact from what has been presented to the Court.  They have a tremendous undertaking before them.

We first wish to understand the sequence of events at the meeting.  There are two different versions of this.  Judge Hilburn’s story follows the pattern A – B – C while almost everyone else follows the pattern A – C – B.  The below statements are verbatim excerpts from each response; we have only removed sentences or phrases that were not pertinent to the sequence of events.

Judge Hilburn:

• A – I immediately told them there would be no discussion of any state court matters.
• B – I inquired as to the status of the federal court litigation;
• C – I told those present they would not need to appear at the Jackson County Courthouse the next day, that I had prepared an email temporarily staying the state court litigation and canceling the hearing scheduled at 9:00 the next day.

Sessoms & Williams:

• A – Judge Hilburn subsequently arrived, and again it was mentioned that there would be no discussion about the Chancery Court cases.
• B – Plaintiffs’ Counsel, Jim Reeves, who represents clients in the Jones litigation, but not in the Almond litigation […] discussed the Jones Federal Court litigation.
• C -Judge Hilburn announced he was staying all proceedings pending the Federal Court litigation. He also said that he was cancelling the hearing set for 9:00 AM the next day.

Incredibly, Sessoms & Williams response differs from their earlier response to the Court on behalf of SRHS.  In that version, Judge Hilburn announced the stay at the beginning of the meeting and not at the end.  It appears Sessoms & Williams sequence of events changed after having the benefit of  Judge Hilburn’s statement. See below. Continue reading →