Attorney General
In 2005, Hood prosecuted former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen for orchestrating the 1964 murders of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney in Philadelphia, Mississippi during Freedom Summer.
He has been active in the legal aspects of the recovery of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after Katrina, Hood partnered with Mississippi plaintiff attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a brother-in-law of former U.S. Senator Trent Lott, in filing suit against numerous high-profile insurance companies. Hood's leadership has been praised by some as allowing homeowners a better opportunity for recovery than they experienced in neighboring Louisiana, but Scruggs and Hood have also been criticized for over-zealously prosecuting insurance companies and because Scruggs helped convey confidential documents, which Hood used in a criminal probe, supposedly to pressure State Farm Insurance into settlement. Hood was reelected on November 6, 2007 and again for a third term on November 8, 2011. He is currently the only Democrat to hold statewide office in Mississippi.
In 2008, Judge William Acker criticized Hood in a judicial opinion for his role in helping Scruggs commit civil contempt. Scruggs was later convicted in federal court of crimes committed during the post-Katrina litigation. The saga is recounted in the 2009 book, Kings of Tort.
Read more about this topic: Jim Hood
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