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Paula Jones vs. President Clinton
Newly-released Jones documents reveal judge encouraged Jones to accept settlement
Nov. 9 (Court TV) — U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright did not believe in the merits of Paula Jones' case as early as last January and encouraged both sides to reach an agreement, according to documents released only four days after the latest failed attempt to settle the suit.
According to minutes of a closed hearing held on Jan. 12, Judge Wright said that she did not think Jones would win her case if it went to trial. Wright indicated that she wanted to talk Jones into accepting a "reasonable offer."
"It it goes to trial, everyone loses," Wright said. "The court would like to talk to her and tell her that she should accept a reasonable offer, that she could have a difficult time winning her case."
But Jones refused to settle, and three months later, Wright dismissed Jones' case, ruling that the former Arkansas state employee had not proven her case. Wright said that even if Jones' allegations that Clinton made sexual advances to her at a Little Rock hotel in 1991 were true, the case was still too weak to go to trial. Clinton continues to deny all the charges. Jones has appealed Judge Wright's ruling, and her petition to have her case reinstated is under consideration by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
This latest dump of over 1,000 pages of previously sealed documents, the third and final release of the Jones casefiles, provide several other new details:
—Some of the women subpoenaed by Mrs. Jones' lawyers tried to
avoid questioning about alleged sexual liaisons with Clinton when
he was Arkansas governor. The women, whose names were stricken from
the court documents and referred to only as Jane Does, raised a
variety of arguments including one who invoked her ``constitutional
privilege of privacy.'' The judge ruled against them.
—Betsey Wright sought to block a subpoena to her seeking
documents about ``any woman who allegedly has had sexual relations
with or asserted she had sexual relations" with her former boss.
—Bennett complained to the court last December that Mrs. Jones
and the conservative group that was paying her legal bills, the
Rutherford Institute, had sent a fund-raising letter to citizens in
eastern Arkansas.
``It is highly improper for such a letter to be sent to those
who could be in our jury pool,'' Bennett wrote.
Jones' remaining hopes rest with the Eighth Circuit, but the court upholds Judge Wright's ruling, Jones may not benefit at all from the suit. Instead, Jones would only have mounting debt, and Judge Wright's unheeded words urging her to settle the case ringing in her ears.
-Bryan Robinson
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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