The media reports, webbed overnight and today, on the Conrad Black trial have diminished in number once again, as there was little news from yesterday:
1. Peter Worthington's latest column, as webbed by the Calgary Sun, contains his call on the verdict: not guilty for Mark Kipnis, Peter Atkinson and Jack Boultbee. Conrad Black will either be acquitted or convicted on the obstruction-of-justice charge.
2. Paul Waldie's latest report, webbed by the Globe and Mail, contains two "Jury Updates" - specifically, a mention of two notes the jury sent out yesterday. It also mentions that Judge St. Eve has not released the names of the jurors yet. (Despite all the complaints that have surrounded this withholding, it may very well be standard procedure in trials where one of the charges is racketeering.)
3. Another report webbed by the Globe is a prison profile - a profile of the kind of jail Conrad Black may end up in if convicted. If he lands in medium security, according to Andrew Stoltmann, "I'll tell you something... A 63-year-old white man who at one point was very wealthy and tends to be a little bombastic and condescending is going to stand out like a sore thumb in a medium-security prison." The rest of the report discounts the possibility of it occurring. (This sore-thumb status could rate him the Paris Hilton sequestration treatment. In a way, it's ironic that certain prisoners are prominent enough to rate possible solitary confinement, but this implication makes for quite the means test.)
4. A brief report by Mary Vallis, webbed by the Montreal Gazette, describes the exhibit that the jurors asked for yesterday, and mentions the schedule note that they sent out earlier. The exhibit was a chart of the non-compete payments.
5. A report by Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star starts off by mention that Conrad Black is on record as spending more than $200,000 last month...not including legal fees. "While Black and others are accused of stealing $60 million (all figures U.S.) from Hollinger International Inc., lawyers working on Black's fraud case estimate legal fees related to the case eclipsed that figure months ago." After describing the two notes from the jury, it ends with the bill for Dennis Kozlowski: $17.8 million.
6. Michael Sneed's latest column, webbed by the Chicago Sun-Times, mentions a post-trial party thrown by Jack Boultbee's counsellor Patrick Tuite. Lawyers were invited; Judge St. Eve was not. Also mentioned near the end is Edward Genson's birthday, which arrives tomorrow.
7. A brief note saying that deliberations will continue today (9 AM to 1 PM CT,) before a brief recap of yesterday's, has been webbed by 680 News.
8. BNN reported, in its noon newscast, about a request note from the jury for a transcript of Jonathan Rosenberg's testimony. Csr. Rosenberg was a lawyer for the Special Committee of the Hollinger International Board of Directors. [His testimony under direct examination is in the middle of this report; under cross-examination, in the second half of this report.] The judge refused the request; the reason given was that the jurors were already told to rely upon their notes and recollections.
9. Ameet Sachdev of the Chicago Tribune also mentions the transcript request and refusal, and re-caps who Csr. Rosenberg had testified to (under direct examination.) Before it is a profile of the lawyer.
10. NBC5.com of Chicago has webbed an Associated Press feature report that focuses upon the heart of the charges: the non-compete agreements and payments. A noticable line in it: "It is virtually unheard of for [non-complete payments] to end up as the focus of a criminal trial."
11. A more immediate AP report, webbed by the International Herald Tribune, focuses on the same request and refusal. It too carries background about Csr. Rosenberg and his testimony. [An AP summary of this item, without the background, has been webbed by WQAD.com.]
12. A report by Mary Vallis and Theresa Tedesco, webbed by the Financial Post, notes that Csr. Rosenberg had testified that Peter Atkinson had said to him that his $2 million non-compete payment was a "'bonus that had been properly approved'" and "that CanWest Global Comunications had not requested that he sign a non-compete payment from him to close the deal."
13. Mr. Waldie appeared on BNN at 1:32 PM ET for an update. After reporting on the request and refusal, he passed along the reason why. The specific policy regarding the withholding of transcripts from juries "varies from judge to judge." In this case, the total-withhold option was chosen by Judge St. Eve because of the high number of sidebar conversations that are also in the transcript.
14. A report by Bloomberg's Andrew Harris and Joe Schneider, which covers the same subject, also has an excerpt from the cross-examination of Csr. Rosenberg. Also mentioned is that the refused request was one of four notes from the jury.
15. A Canadian Press wrapup report, webbed by CTV News. starts off by mentioning that the jury has gone home for the weekend without a verdict. It also notes that there have been two scheduling notes from the jury so far - one of them requesting a smoke break. (This last one was deemed to be not worthy of releasing the notifications today, despite any news value it might have had in these times.)
16. BNN aired a week's wrap–up discussion with Paul Waldie at 5:53 PM ET, as part of the show "Squeeze Play." (Mr. Waldie was co-host today.) After reviewing the deliberations so far, he explained that Csr. Rosenberg’s testimony had really hit at three defendants: Peter Atkinson, Jack Boultbee and Mark Kipnis; his testimony, which came right after David Radler's, also cast a shadow on the suspicious non-compete payments. The prosecution considered that testimony important enough to use it a major plank in their closing address. Csr. Rosenberg was also unruffled during cross-examination.
After finishing with the recount, Mr. Waldie made a revised call for the length of the deliberations: the verdict will probably come the week after next.
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A Bloomberg report contains the news that Richard Scrushy, the big one that got away, has been sentenced to about seven years for bribery.
Also, the transcript from the Q-and-A with Douglas Bell of the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog is available from here.
Finally, Mark Steyn, in his Maclean's Conrad Black trial blog, was the first with the news about the smoke break; he had a little fun with the latter. More seriously, he advances the theory that a long sequestration period is good for the defense, because the prosecution's case is simple and the defense's is nuanced. The jury may be spending time verifying it, which presumably would be good for the defense because it implies doubts about the prosecution's narrative. (If true, then it's a point that I myself missed.)
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for this comprehensive and useful service. I find the blogs and columns by Peter Worthington, Mark Steyn, and Steve Skurka colorful but effectively useless in exposing the trial process. All three writers seem to me to have ulterior motives for their unabashed defenses of Black. I can't help overcome my suspicion that the "services" that these blogs/columns offer are in fact somehow part of the defense strategy. If I was a juror I would be reading those blogs.
I have no idea if Black is guilty. As much as I am offended by his life long arrogance, I do hope he is acquitted. But the elements in this case that smell of deception (the late night removal of "personal" boxes, the need for non-competes, and the fact that Black and company were facing greatly diminished cash flow in the future) have been minimized by these three writers. I am also puzzled how easily a Radler's "dishonesty" can be exposed in a court, but not noticed in a 30 year career with Black as his partner.
I was very glad to provide it, and I even had a bit of fun while doing so. You are right about the partisanship of those three, but I failed to detect any underlying motive except for plain loyalty to the man. Conrad's father was notoriously hands-off when the president of Canadian Breweries, and I suspect that Conrad himself was when running newspapers. That was really his management secret: non-interference with journalists' work, thus distinguishing himself from the garden-variety 'hands-on' top boss. He renounced a customary privilege of the office, and I'm sure he won a lot of loyalty for it. Charm alone can't account for the loyalty he has inspired.
I am, of course, aware that he is capable of inspiring quite different feelings in others.
If you want my best guess as to the source of his "life long arrogance," it would be the fact that his father raised him to be a top-notch intellectual, not a businessman. Any arrogance he has is basically shared by anyone who has learned to write through exhaustive memorization of a dictionary. That's the type of person who can tell you that your writing is muddy and make it stick. I admit that I was momentarily miffed when another fellow who had learned the same way - a person who was profoundly different from Conrad Black otherwise - told me that my own writing was unclear in a listserv some time ago. Even though he had been polite enough to personalize his criticism ("I find your writing...") and really hadn't intended to cause offense, it still rankled.
In a way, it's a shame that things have turned out the way they have. Conrad Black might have been to Canadian letters what John Stuart Mill was to English economics. Instead, he had to go into business.
I snuck myself in to the Hollinger Inc. 1997 annual meeting, without ever having owned a share of the company. (Security was looser then.) While there, I saw Conrad's elder brother, Monte. I said something to him, and got a brief, cold answer which ended with a 'you're-dismissed' turn-away. All that left me feeling, though, was nonplussed. Whatever kind of arrogance Conrad has, his brother lacked.
In fact, if you don't mind me waxing generalistic, the fellow who applies himself to learning the exact meaning of words finds it easy to get under the skin of others because we're creatures of the word. Thus, it's easy for such a person to make others feel less than human...even unintentionally.
It's also capable of inspiring admiration, too. That's another source of the partisanship he has benefitted from.
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