Al Hopkins fools supporters with hypocritical actions!!!

JACKSON, Miss. – Al Hopkins’ supporters have been fooled into backing his campaign, apparently unaware that his rhetoric does not match his actions when it comes to tort reform, outside counsel, his phantom “judicial” career and his purported experience fighting crime.

When Hopkins claims credit for his support of tort reform laws in Mississippi, he fails to tell his supporters that:

• Just a week before new tort reform laws took effect on Jan. 1, 2003, Hopkins filed approximately 2,000 lawsuits against one of Mississippi’s largest businesses, DuPont, enabling him to collect $14 million in damages the following year. In fact, some of those lawsuits were filed just the day before the new laws became effective.
(Sources: Circuit Court of Jones County, Second Judicial District; Circuit Court of Harrison County, First Judicial District; Sun-Herald, Jan. 3, 2003

When Hopkins criticizes Jim Hood for using outside counsel , he fails to say that:

• Hopkins has earned nearly $100,000 in legal fees paid by Mississippi taxpayers since 2001 as an outside attorney hired by the state.(Source: State of Mississippi)

In fact, according to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Hopkins told them that “it might be useful to contract with private attorneys under a similar contingency arrangement.” (Sept. 14, 2007)

When Hopkins boasts of his experience as a military court of appeals judge, he fails to mention that:

• Since joining the Mississippi Court of Military Appeals in 1996, the court has not met a single time or heard a single case. (Source: Mississippi National Guard’s Adjutant General’s Office)

When Hopkins tells his supporters that his crime-fighting experience qualifies him to be attorney general, he fails to say that:

• Hopkins has never prosecuted a single felony crime. In fact, Hopkins has only handled a few misdemeanor pig and cow cases more than 20 years ago. According to records from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Hopkins was employed part-time by the state Board of Animal Health as outside counsel (a practice which he now claims to oppose) from 1982-85 to assist in alleged violations of the state’s brucellosis eradication program. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease primarily passed among farm animals.

“So who is Al Hopkins and what experience qualifies him to be attorney general? ” asked Jonathan Compretta, campaign manager for the Jim Hood Campaign. “Mississippians will tolerate a lot, but not hypocrisy.”

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