The trial of Geoffrey Fieger is coming to a head in MoTown.  This is the one where Gerry Spence, the lawyer who has never lost a criminal case, stands under the spotlight as the last hope of the regular man against the vast might of the government.  Mind you, Fieger’s not exactly the poster boy for the “regular man.”

Regardless of whether you’re a big Spence fan or not, he is most assuredly a living legend amongst criminal defense lawyers.  Enough so that my pal Norman, who has followed this trial and posted about it on a daily basis, decided to pick his tired old butt off the seat and hop a plane to Detroit to see the legend in action.  For a guy who says he’s not a fan of Mr. Spence, this strikes me as a rather significant commitment.

I’ve followed Norm’s blow by blow of the trial, and even tossed my 2 cents in on occasion.  I don’t really have a horse in the race, but I do find it troubling when any lawyer promotes himself as heavily as Gerry Spence.  Tzniut , modesty in all things, the Talmud tells us.  Spence is not a modest fellow.

In contrast to Norm’s reporting of the trial, Turley posts about it today as well.  Reading Turley’s take, one would think the trial is going swimmingly for the government.  Reading Norm, one might think otherwise.

I don’t think Turley reads Norm’s blawg.  I don’t know if Turley reads anyone’s blawg.  He’s certainly not big on links to others if he gets ideas from anyone else.  I believe he may read my blawg, but I don’t think he’d ever admit it.  I believe this because I choose to live in a fantasy world where everyone reads my blawg.  I have absolutely no proof to the contrary.

Turley writes:

The trial of controversial lawyer Geoffrey Fieger for illegal campaign contributions to John Edwards 2004 campaign is in full swing with the testimony of his paralegal and trainer. Despite his all-star defense team, Fieger’s defense seems pretty lame: he admits that he reimbursed employees for contributions but did not realize that it was illegal.

Spence is lame.  You heard it here second.  But as we all know, trials aren’t like baseball games, where they score by the inning.  It’s a winner take all proposition, and it’s not over till the fringed lawyer sings.  Turley lists the witnesses from Fieger’s firm who testified against him, and makes it sound like the government scored, witness after witness.  Maybe so.  His post certainly suggests that Fieger is going down, down, down.

Turley also brings up an interesting aside from the midst of the trial.

One of the interesting aspects of Sandner’s testimony was her refusal to testify under immunity if FBI agent Jeffrey Rees was present. Sandner testified that Rees was so abusive and rough that in his interrogation that she refused to be in the same room with him. I have seen many of such complaints against agents who get away with such treatment of witnesses. Notably, the Justice Department is silent on the sworn testimony. She is obviously quite credible since she is cooperating. Yet, once again, these allegations of abuse seemed to be ignored by the Justice Department — even after being vented in open court.

Norm mentioned this as well, but didn’t go into this troubling aspect as Turley does.  Norm’s take is that the jury will come to hate the agents and believe that witnesses are testifying for the government out of fear that the agents will harm their children.  

Agents, of course, believe that they are entitled to do anything in the name of “justice”.  There is no limit to the depth of their depravity to get the bad guy.  It’s a curious moral dilemma, but lawyers working for the Department of Justice don’t seem to notice this problem. 

It’s very cool that Norm was able to hop a plane to go see Spence cross the case agent today.  I can’t wait to read what happens.  If I didn’t have to slave away on my own cases, I would have taken the seat next to Norm.  I love a road trip.