Maggio again seeks review at high court

Former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Michael Maggio on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its denial of his petition requesting the high court to hear his appeal of a federal bribery conviction.

Without comment, the high court denied Maggio’s earlier petition Nov. 6.

Maggio’s new petition, filed by attorney John Wesley Hall, pins the ousted judge’s hopes on another case in which a former Longwood, Fla., police chief, Thomas S. Jackson, has asked the high court to hear his appeal of a federal bribery conviction.

The issue in the Florida case is whether a federal funds bribery conviction under the same federal bribery statute as Maggio was convicted “requires proof of a quid pro quo or an ‘official act,’ ” Hall wrote in the new court petition.

“The issue in [Maggio’s] case is close enough to Jackson that, if the petition Jackson is granted, this case should be considered with it or at least held back for consideration in light of Jackson,” Hall wrote. If Jackson’s petition is denied, “then this [Maggio’s] petition for rehearing would then essentially be moot.”

Hall said Thursday he doesn’t expect a decision on the Jackson case until later in December or January.

The U.S. solicitor general, who represents the federal government in appeals to the Supreme Court, waived a response to Maggio’s original petition. But Hall noted the solicitor general filed a response in the Jackson case. Jackson now will have a chance to respond in turn.

Maggio, 56, began serving a 10-year prison sentence in July after unsuccessfully trying to withdraw a guilty plea he entered in U.S. District Court in Little Rock to bribery. Among other issues, he had argued his original attorneys had “badgered” him into the January 2015 plea agreement.

Maggio is the only person who has been charged in the bribery case. In his plea agreement, he said his campaign had indirectly taken thousands of dollars for his final judicial race in exchange for his lowering a Faulkner County jury’s $5.2 million judgment to $1 million in a nursing home negligence lawsuit.

The agreement implicated two other people, nursing-home owner Michael Morton of Fort Smith and lobbyist and former state Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway. The agreement didn’t identify them by name, but both men have said Maggio was referring to them. They have denied wrongdoing.

The negligence lawsuit resulted from the 2008 death of Martha Bull, 76, of Perryville in Morton’s Greenbrier nursing home. On July 8, 2013, Morton signed off on thousands of dollars in donations to several political action committees. On July 10, 2013, Maggio reduced the judgment. Morton has said he intended for the PAC donations to go to Maggio’s campaign for an appeals court seat, and some did.

Maggio was a judge in the 20th Judicial Circuit, which includes Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered him removed from the bench in September 2014 over online comments he made on a wide range of topics, including women, sex, divorce, bestiality and a legally confidential adoption involving actress Charlize Theron.