Robert Burt DeLaughter Sr. (born February 28, 1954 in

Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat, and the population at the 2010 census was 23,856. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vi ...

) is a former state prosecutor and then Hinds County Circuit Judge. He prosecuted and secured the conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith, charged with the murder of the

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

leader

Medgar Evers Medgar Wiley Evers (; July 2, 1925June 12, 1963) was an American civil rights activist and the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi, who was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith. Evers, a decorated U.S. Army combat veteran who had served i ...

on June 12, 1963. Two earlier trials in Mississippi in 1964 had resulted in hung juries.

Career

On March 28, 2008, DeLaughter was suspended from the bench indefinitely by the

Mississippi Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Mississippi is the highest court in the state of Mississippi. It was established in the first constitution of the state following its admission as a State of the Union in 1817 and was known as the High Court of Errors and App ...

due to allegations of bribery and judicial misconduct. On February 12, 2009, DeLaughter pleaded not guilty to a five-count federal indictment; these charges were linked to the criminal investigation of disgraced

tort A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...

attorney

Richard Scruggs Richard F. "Dickie" Scruggs (born May 17, 1946) is an American former naval aviator and disbarred trial lawyer. He is the brother-in-law of former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. Scruggs first came to the public eye after successfully ...

. On July 30, 2009, he pleaded guilty to one obstruction-of-justice charge. On November 13, 2009, DeLaughter was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison by Judge Glen Davidson. In keeping with the recommendation of his plea agreement, Judge Davidson did not impose a financial penalty on DeLaughter due to his negative net worth. He was incarcerated in the federal prison at McCreary and was released on April 13, 2011.

Representation in other media

In 1996, the events surrounding the De La Beckwith trial were memorialized in the

Rob Reiner Robert Norman Reiner (born March 6, 1947) is an American actor and filmmaker. As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence with the role of Michael "Meathead" Stivic on the CBS sitcom ''All in the Family'' (1971–1979), a performan ...

film ''

Ghosts of Mississippi ''Ghosts of Mississippi'' is a 1996 American biographical courtroom drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The plot is based on the true story of the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the ...

''. Alec Baldwin portrayed DeLaughter in the film. In 2001, DeLaughter published his book about the Evers prosecution, entitled ''Never Too Late: A Prosecutor’s Story of Justice in the Medgar Evers Trial''.

References

1954 births Living people American memoirists Writers from Mississippi Politicians from Vicksburg, Mississippi American prosecutors Mississippi state court judges Mississippi politicians convicted of crimes {{US-state-judge-stub