The Verdict: Cracked Consensus

This episode of The Verdict, like the previous one, had its look at the Conrad Black trial serving as a pair of bookends for two other cases of note.

The resident legal expert on the trial, Steve Skurka, diverged from the consensus opinion regarding Edward Greenspan's cross-examination of Gordon Paris. He assessed Csr. Greenspan's performance as hurtful to the defense because he had tried too hard, and thus had allowed Mr. Paris to pontificate somewhat. He said, though, that the cross-examination went better for the defense with the two following witnesses, one of which was the corporate finance manager of Hollinger Int'l.

[The other witness was Peter Laino, "who worked at a company that bought two publications from Hollinger in 1998..." The name and the quote came from the latest write-up from the Globe and Mail's Paul Waldie. That company was Intertec Publishing; the transaction in question is called "the American Trucker transaction" in the indictment, starting on p. 7 of it.]

Csr. Skurka ended with the observation that the plan to finger David Radler for all the noncompete deals in the indictment, except for the CanWest one, took shape without any glitches emerging.

A consensus in miniature did emerge from all of the guests invited on to discuss the trial itself, which Ms. Todd herself agreed with: the jury was unusually attentive. The consensus expectation didn't fare very well regarding the jury's interest level, either.

Two guests were there to discuss Conrad Black, but not his trial. Mark Steyn and Professor Ruth Prigozy, an F. Scott Fitzgerald expert, spent one segment debating whether or not Conrad Black was a real life Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald's eponymous self-made man. This discussion was prompted by a public statement made by a friend of Mr. Black, one in a high place, and Mr. Black's printed reaction to the proffered help.

The next-to-last segment featured another lawyer, Hugh Totten, as a guest, but his counter-point was a journalist from Chicago Public Radio, Diantha Parker. She spent most of her time debunking the consensus myths about the jury's limitations.

Csr. Totten also broke from the consensus view by describing Jeffrey Cramer's opening address as "underwhelming." The prosecution team is going out of their way to underpromise, he added. Csr. Cramer's address was also described as "low-key" by Csr. Totten.

At the end of this episode, Ms. Todd noted that a lot of the courtroom scenery-chewing was in fact calculated to impress the jury, and it seemed to be having that effect. A good first week, it was.