Let it rain …

Remember Tom Hanks’s line in the movie about women playing professional baseball during WWII (he was a former professional baseball player managing one of the teams)? “There’s no crying in baseball!” You can say the same rule applies to lawyers trying cases. Every rule has an exception, of course. I’ve come close to losing my composure a couple of times in closing arguments to juries in the sentencing phase of a death-penalty trial. It’s difficult not to water your notes with tears when you’re asking a jury to spare your client’s life.

Jurors can tell the difference between a faux drama queen’s manufactured crocodile tears and a lawyer’s genuine struggle to keep his or her emotions under control. A trial lawyer has a duty to control his client and Wells failed to control Scooter, except that he may have persuaded him not to testify. If Scooter had testified, he would have committed perjury yet another time and today Fitz probably would still be cross examining and subjecting him to the storied death by a thousand cuts. Scooter’s defense was disorganized and inconsistent with the defense opening statement. As FDL’s Mighty Trio pointed out, Wells spent too much time during his closing argument defending himself, which is the equivalent of admitting that he screwed up. “Methink the lady doth protest too much!” comes to mind. When he finally got around to defending Libby, he’d used up too much time and was forced adopt a defensive and unprepared scatter-gun approach to the prosecution’s opening closing argument. He seemed unprepared and disorganized. Ultimately, he could only cry and beg the jury to return Scooter to him. His plea struck me as something a child might say to a parent who disciplined him by taking away his favorite little red scooter. All that he managed to accomplish was to create an opportunity for Fitz to exploit, and Fitz exploited it to the max when he asked the jury to return the truth to the courtroom.

Although Wells didn’t have much of a case, he only succeeded in allowing himself to be played by his client and then by Fitz and his team. No wonder he shielded his eyes from everyone in the courtroom during Fitz’z rebuttal. He made a fool out of himself and paid for it big time. Flopping in front of a nationwide, possibly worldwide audience must be devastating. Of course, his eight million dollar fee no doubt will reduce the sting, so it’s hard to work up any sympathy for him.

By now, he should realize that Scooter’s only viable strategy was to tell the truth, plead guilty, and testify against the Prince of Darkness and his idiot sidekick. I think we can legitimately question whether he was representing Cheney’s best interests, rather than Libby’s. If so, he committed an ethical violation on top of everything else that he failed to do.

Are eight million excuses sufficient to justify his tawdry effort? If so, he isn’t any better than the man he defended, whether that man is Cheney or Libby.

At one point in the tobacco trial, she showed B&W attorney David Bernick how she felt about such tactics. The following is from http://www.tobacco-on-trial.co…..aybe-not/:

Mr. Bernick came perilously close to popping out of the zone once when, after determining that Dr. Dolan could cite no other defendant but B&W who had actually said they did not market to people under 21, he said,

“So, the only one you are sure about is my poor client, Brown & Williamson.”

Even Judge Kessler, who is not given to such interruptions, couldn’t resist a smile as she said,

“Let’s not bring out the violin, Mr. Bernick.”

[Mod Note; pick one name and stick with it. Sock puppetry is reason to be banned from this site.]

I was so happy to hear Marcy say that for the first time she feels like Fitz is going after Cheney.

Best regards,
Joanne

FITZ!!!