Michael Cameron Moore (born April 3, 1952) is an American attorney and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the Attorney General of Mississippi from 1988 to 2004.
Michael Cameron Moore was born on April 3, 1952, in Jackson, Mississippi. He grew up in Pascagoula in Mississippi's Gulf Coast region and graduated from the city's Our Lady of Victory High School. He attended Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College for two years before studying political science at the University of Mississippi, receiving a bachelor's degree from the latter in 1974. He then received a J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1976. He married Letitia Rebecca Wood and had a son with her.
In 1977, Moore became an assistant district attorney in Mississippi's 19th Judicial District, representing Jackson, Greene, and George counties. In 1979, he won election to the office of district attorney for the 19th Judicial District. Aged 26, he came into office in 1980 as the youngest elected official in Mississippi. In his first year as district attorney, Moore prosecuted four of the five sitting Jackson County supervisors on corruption charges stemming from the excessive purchase of seashells by the county to pave private driveways, gaining statewide media attention. During his tenure he also established youth education programs concerning child abuse and alcohol and illegal drug use. He won reelection in 1983 with 83 percent of the vote and left office in 1988.
Attorney General of Mississippi
In 1987, Moore ran for the office of Attorney General of Mississippi. In a race which drew significant public attention, he defeated former Jackson mayor Dale Danks in the Democratic primary and won the general election. He was the first Gulf Coast candidate to win a state office in over 100 years. During the same election, Ray Mabus was elected governor and Dick Molpus was reelected secretary of state. The three of them were relatively young Democrats and shared similar goals in-so-far as ameliorating Mississippi's national reputation, supporting greater public health resources, and improving public education. The media collectively referred to them as the "boys of summer" and "the three musketeers". Moore was sworn-in as attorney general on January 7, 1988.
In May 1988, Moore successfully lobbied the Mississippi Legislature to pass a bill to allow the attorney general to investigate public corruption and convene grand juries and subpoena documents in such cases without a preliminary request from a local district attorney. He established a white collar crimes unit in his office. In 1992, he secured the indictment of Public Service Commissioner Sidney Barnett for taking illegal campaign contributions. Moore then negotiated Barnett's resignation and secured his cooperation into an investigation into other illegal contributions from utility companies to public service commissioners. From 1995 to 1997, the office led a corruption investigation into local government in Clairborne County, culminating in the conviction of two county supervisors and another county employee for cashing fraudulent checks in early 1998. Later in his tenure, he and State Auditor Phil Bryant established a good working relationship between their offices, such that the attorney general's prosecutors were able to quickly follow up on instances of fraud and embezzlement uncovered by auditors.
In the 1980s, research increasingly affirmed that asbestos fibers, commonly used in building construction, caused various illnesses in people who inhaled it. Beginning in 1982, lawyers in Mississippi began filing tort cases against asbestos manufacturers and construction companies in pursuit of damages against adversely-impacted individuals. On April 26, 1989, Moore filed a lawsuit in a circuit court on behalf of the state seeking $200 million in compensatory damages against 27 companies for the presence of asbestos in 221 state facilities, stating that the money could be used to renovate the buildings and remove the material. He hired attorney Richard Scruggs—a former law school classmate who had worked on several asbestos cases—on a 25 percent contingency to serve as the state's lead counsel.
Scruggs eventually won a settlement and earned $6 million from the state in legal fees. State Auditor Steve Patterson felt the arrangement was unethical, as Moore had no specific legal authority to contract out the work of his office to private attorneys and Scruggs had donated $20,000 to his 1991 campaign fund. In 1992 the auditor began working with the Hinds County district attorney to build a criminal case against Moore and Scruggs. Presley Blake, a political consultant, interceded and arranged for Patterson and Scruggs to meet, which resulted in Patterson dropping the inquiry and Scruggs reducing his fee for the state. At Scruggs' urging, in 1994, state legislation was amended explicitly authorizing the attorney general to contract attorneys on contingency.
In August 1989, Representative Larkin I. Smith died in plane crash. A special election was scheduled for October to fill Smith's seat in Mississippi's 5th congressional district. After consulting friends and family, Moore declared his candidacy for the seat on August 27, calling his decision "the toughest thing I've ever done in my life" but saying he felt the state required "the strongest voice we could get in Washington". Democrat Gene Taylor and Republican Tom Anderson also entered the race. During the brief campaign, Moore split his time between the events in the 5th congressional district and his work at the attorney general's office in Jackson. He placed third and was eliminated in the first election.
In 1991, Moore began pushing for Mississippi to convene a statewide grand jury to consider indictments in drug cases across Mississippi, arguing that a centralized jury could have access to more investigative resources than local ones. He convinced the Mississippi House of Representatives to pass a bill authorizing the creation of such a jury, but the proposal died in a Senate committee. The effort succeeded in December 1993, when a judge ordered counties to offer names of registered voters to build a jury pool. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush appointed Moore to the President's Commission on Model State Drug Laws, a body designed to study illegal drug-related issues and draft drug control legislation. The body, of which Moore eventually became chairman, released its recommendations the following year, including 44 proposed laws.
In the summer of 1993 attorney Mike Lewis approached law school classmate Moore with the suggestion of plaintiffs seeking damages against cigarette manufacturers to cover the medical costs of smoking-related illnesses, which were often incurred by the government. Moore was interested in the idea and directed Lewis to convey his proposition to Scruggs. As Scruggs began forming a team of attorneys in private practice to discuss the idea, Moore's office drafted plans for a lawsuit. He eventually hired Scruggs' team, dubbed Health Care Advocates Legal Team. In the spring of 1994 he and Scruggs turned over stolen tobacco company research documents to a United States congressional subcommittee evidencing tobacco companies' acknowledgment that they were selling addictive nicotine products. On May 23, 1994, Moore filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state of Mississippi in the Jackson County Chancery Court against 13 tobacco manufacturing companies in pursuit of damages to cover the medical costs incurred by the state to treat persons afflicted by smoking-related illnesses. He justified the suit to the media by arguing, "This is a taxpayers' lawsuit. The bottom line is the [taxpayers] are paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year to treat people who have tobacco related disease."
The chancery court judge allowed for a trial to proceed in February 1995. Meanwhile, Scruggs secured the testimony of Merrell Williams Jr., a tobacco industry whistleblower, while Mississippi Governor Kirk Fordice—who had expressed this disagreement with the tobacco lawsuit from the start, filed a lawsuit against Moore, hoping the State Supreme Court would block the attorney general's action. Fordice argued that Moore's proceedings were a publicity stunt and would damage efforts to attract industry to Mississippi. Moore countered by deriding the governor as "a new Marlboro Man". By the end of 1996, 19 other states had joined the lawsuit against the tobacco companies. In March 1997, the State Supreme Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to try Fordice's case against Moore and allowed the latter's suit to proceed.