The Verdict: The Shrinking Conrad Black Trial

The Verdict is now covering a few stories; it's no longer the "Conrad Black Show." Other trials were discussed, and only four guests were on to discuss the Conrad Black trial for this episode.

The first was regular Steve Skurka. In his opinion, the defense “won the day.” Ron Safer, the lawyer for Mark Kipnis, disclosed that the Hollinger International audit committee, Torys LLP and KPMG all knew of and approved the non-compete transactions for the CanWest deal. [MSNBC has a writeup on this part of Csr. Safer's opening address. The firm identified as "a top law firm in Canada" is Torys.] The CanWest transaction is only one part of the entire group of transactions flagged in the indictment, but it is the largest, Csr. Skurka noted. It was also the only one that Conrad Black was in charge of; Mr. Radler took care of every other deal that was mentioned in the indictment. The members of the defense team didn’t turn on each other (become fissiparous), even though it isn’t “completely unified.” Ms. Todd herself noted that the other defendants are distancing themselves from Conrad Black.

The complexity of the case, Csr. Skurka ventured with tongue somewhat in cheek near the end of his segment, brings up the question: can the very rich get a fair trial?

According to Ms. Todd's next guest, though, Mr. Black's wealth may very well be shrinking to a whole new level. Richard Siklos, author of Shades of Black: Conrad Black - His Rise and Fall, estimated that, before the trial, Mr. Black owned $300 million in the Ravelston/Hollinger group of companies, and $100 million personally. According to Mr. Siklos, Black may be close to broke now, or at least close to illiquidity; he spent several minutes of the interview explaining why. Ms. Todd was skeptical, though.

The last segment had two guests: Ted Chung, a former prosecutor, and Leonard Cavise, a law professor. Csr. Chung was in the courtroom, and he thought that the opening statements were fascinating in their own right. He complimented Csr. Safer as being shrewdly independent in his address. Any risk of juror incomprehension that Csr. Chung saw in the trial itself was mitigated by repetition.

According to Prof. Cavise, Csr. Genson comes into his own when the trial content gets boring. 80% of the time, jurors make up their mind at the time of the opening statements, hence the stirring ones made in this trial. The professor then offered open advice for Mr. Kipnis: he should pull a fade and distance himself from Mr. Black. Perhaps the reason why Mr. Kipnis faced so many charges, despite him receiving virtually no money from any of the transactions that form the base of the indictment, is that the prosecution wanted him to roll, as David Radler did.

In her "closing argument," Ms. Todd opined that Barbara Black will be enough to mitigate any courtroom boredom, once her own activities, including her E-mail exchanges with her husband, are brought in to the trial.

(The middle segments of tonight's episode of The Verdict were devoted to the Phil Spector trial and a discussion about legalizing prostitution in Canada.)