Live Blogging Lord Black Trial: Closing Arguments. Part 2.

Continuing with the defense team:

Condition of closing
Mark Steyn June 19, 2007 18:06:49
Maybe I spoke too soon about how moving were Edward Genson's difficulties with the prosecution's chart.

Judge St Eve has just dismissed the jury for the afternoon, after a second sudden request for a 15-minute break by Counsellor Genson. His closing argument would have been brilliant delivered as a taut tight script. Instead it was delivered in what, as the afternoon wore on, was a rambling idiosyncratic performance backing in, out and around every point. Black's lead counsel has had problems with his health during this trial - with blinding headaches forcing him to ask for impromptu interludes during cross-examination. Tuesday afternoon's break seemed a little sudden, too, and judging from moments when he seemed completely to lose concentration and focus and from his request for that second break, Genson was clearly feeling ill again. He will resume in the morning, hopefully feeling better. It would be a cruel caprice for Conrad Black to be sentenced to a century in jail because his lawyer was sick on the big day.

Moving performance
Mark Steyn June 19, 2007 15:03:52

The Black strategy rests on maximizing the different strengths of his two lawyers and hoping thereby to minimize their weaknesses. Eddie Greenspan can make a coolly lethal argument but the jury hasn't warmed to him. Eddie Genson is liked by the jury but he extemporizes his way around every subject in a way that can be all but impossible to follow unless you've been reading up on this case for four years.

Genson is making his closing statement right now and, if you transcribed it literally, it would be gibberish. But he has a kind of strangely affecting physical power. Thanks to his debilitating illness, he's a big shaking shaggy hulk under a mop of unfeasibly blonde cherubic ringlets, and when he's worked up it's oddly moving. Just now, he was worked up about prosecutor Ruder's chart of evidence of Black's knowledge of the "scheme", the final item of which was Ms Ruder's assertion that the $2.6 million rock he bought for Barbara proved he knew the CNHI non-compete was on its way. Quivering like a giant mutated blancmange from a 1950s creature feature, Genson struggled and wrestled with Ms Ruder's chart and eventually got it propped up on the edge of the jury box, so he could point out the prosecutor's claim was completely fraudulent: Conrad had not paid for the diamond ring with CNHI money. He was right on the narrow point of the government's outrageous misrepresentation. But it was the way the outrage manifested itself physically that resonated with the jury: it made a small point a big win.


Numbers game
Mark Steyn June 19, 2007 13:03:10
I worry about Ed Genson's inability to stick to a script. He started with a strong point about how Conrad had built this company up from nothing into the third biggest newspaper company in the world. As Genson put it, Conrad started with a $20,000 investment in a small newspaper in Quebec and ended by getting "a million half" for the London Telegraph, "two million" for the Canadian newspapers, "close to a million" for the US community papers.

The jury looked unimpressed, as well they might.

Er, no. It was a billion and a half for the Telegraph, over two billion for the CanWest titles, a billion for the small-town US papers.

Years ago, Mel Brooks' mom saw a screening of his movie and said, "It's wonderful, Melvin. It should only make a million dollars!"

He said: "If it does, we're screwed. It cost 12 million."

Likewise, if the Telegraph had only made a million half, Hollinger would have been screwed. The Black titles sold for billions. It would have been nice to get the numbers right.

Bad Ed/Good Ed
Mark Steyn June 19, 2007 12:53:07
Eddie Greenspan did an effective job as the bad cop, slamming Radler and the Audit Committee. Ed Genson has now taken the floor to do a good cop routine on the case for Conrad.