Spence, fieger&absence
My wife Lita and I are leaving in a few minutes for the airport. We going to Italy and aren’t back until the first week in June so I will not be posting on this blog during that time.
Gerry Spence is still at it in Detroit defending a lawyer with the assistance of a very fine criminal defense lawyer from Idaho who worked with Gerry in the Randy Weaver case. While all lawyers are an attorney’s worst nightmare for a client, Mr. Fieger has to be an extreme example. Only a lawyer of Spence’s experience could handle a client like this correctly and I am confident he is doing so. The problem for Spence is that a trial is always a battle of impression and not logic. Since the client is the central figure the impression of the client generally dominates the impression of the lawyer or witnesses. I know Gerry well enough to know that he has developed a favorable relationship, although unspoken, with the jury and has done so in spite of no voir dire on his part (I’m assuming the federal judge exclusively conducted voir dire) In one case I know about, the defense unsuccessfully moved to have Spence ordered not to look at the jury or gesture towards them, but you can’t control charisma that way. It is this unspoken relationship which is created between the people on the jury and the trial lawyer that has enormous significance because the jury is looking for someone to help lead them to the right result in the case. Someone they can trust to tell the truth. Someone who appears to be reasonable and fair they can look to. Usually, this is the judge, but with lawyers like Spence it can and often is, one of the lawyers as well. In fact, in the Marcos trial in New York the judge, and some co-defense counsel, were verbally abusive to Spence through most of the trial, but the jury loved him and found his client innocent. As I said, a trial is a battle of impression and not logic.
See you when we get back!