The Verdict: Episode 2 For Day 2

Now that the jury has been selected, there's already speculation on how the trial is going to go, how long it will be, and what the verdict will be, too.

The Verdict's Steve Skurka went out on a limb tonight – he predicted, unequivocally, that Conrad Black will be found innocent of all charges. This prediction, Paula Todd evidently disagreed with: she and he had a bit of spontaneous fun arguing over the case in the colloquial sense, with he sticking up for the defense and her for the prosecution. She noted on the show that the team of prosecutors were bright and hungry workaholics, in order to counter Csr. Skurka's point (which got the argument rolling) that the talent of Conrad Black's two chief counsels would bowl the inexperienced prosecutors right over. Ms. Todd, though, did stress the D.A-team's youth and vigor, which served as her counter-point to Csr. Skurka's point about trial and case-preparation experience.

Early in the show appeared three experts on jury selection: Samuel Solomon of New York, Paul Bernstein of Toronto, and the same Csr. Skurka. Csr. Bernstein made the point that a plea bargain would be anathema for Conrad Black, not just because of the guarantee of jail time and the effect on subsequent civil trials (shareholders' suits), but also because an admission of guilt, or even a venture towards that, would, in Csr. Bernstein's word, be a huge "embarrassment" for Conrad Black. He had to make his stand, in other words, as the dishonour implicit in a plea bargain would have wrecked him.

There was also a discussion of Barbara Amiel Black, and her lavish lifestyle. (It was broached that the prosecutors might portray her as the "bad woman," who enticed Conrad to his fall.) Two figures who knew her "'way back when," Peter C. Newman (her former boss at Maclean's) and George Jonas (her ex-husband) were on: both described her as hard-working, intelligent, with-it, and, of course, an attention magnet even back when she was a "mere journalist." Leanne de Lap, a fashion editor at The Globe and Mail, did mention a trial-related point about her: had Barbara's true reputation preceded her, it would have been to the advantage of her husband.

So, public anonymity won't be the unalloyed boon that it has sometimes been portrayed as.

One fact about Barbara's distant past, though, was not mentioned: in her youth, she was a committed Communist. She even attended the 1962 Communist World Youth Festival in Helsinki, Finland. Her right-wing views were forged out of rejecting that part of her youth.

Also on the show: three journalist observers, one from each of the three countries most likely to be interested in the case: Paul Waldie, from the Globe and Mail; Andrew Clark from the Guardian; and, Jim Warren, from the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Clark portrayed the trial as a burdensome education for Conrad Black about how the working class lives; Mr. Warren pointed out that the press coverage by the local papers, so far, wasn't exactly spilling over into the street; and, Mr. Waldie made the penetrating observation that the potential juror who would best understand the facts of the case, a self-employed professional or member of upper management, would be self-selected out of the juror pool, because he or she was too busy to serve in a trial. An important point, one that may very well be underrated when "show trials" of disgraced, or politically vulnerable, businesspeople are discussed.

This show began with an inside scoop from CTV journalist Lisa LaFlamme: the jury is composed of more women than men - 9 to 3, she reported. No speculations on how Judge St. Eve would react if she found out about this slip-through.