The New York Times explains the mystery

...of why Conrad Black was hardly known about in Chicago as of the start of the jury selection for the trial: he hardly ever was there. The article that notes it also contains a note about an inflated-circulation scandal "that was revealed after Mr. Black and his managers were booted from the company." Details on that scandal can be found here and here.

Pro-Black Philippic With Neglected Facts

In Maclean's, Mark Steyn has written a polemical defense of Conrad Black, with a few facts that may get lost in the ensuing tumult:

1. Mr. Breeden isn't exactly anchoritic with respect to money himself;

2. Almost all of the recent wipe-out of the share price of Hollinger International (now Sun-Times Media) occurred after Conrad Black was removed from its CEOship [details can be found through using this stock chart and in this item, which attributes the downturn to bad industry conditions, although this item details inflated circulation at the Sun-Times from 1998 to 2004];

3. The "squeaky-clean" directors brought into Hollinger Inc., after Mr. Black was ousted from it, were sued by a minority shareholder, the Catalyst Fund, to oust them and, later, to make them to disgorge some of their own "disproportionate" directors' fees and bonuses.

There seem to be few candidates for heroship in this case, with the possible exception of Patrick Fitzgerald and the assistant D.A.s. - if you put aside the fact that even career public servants are not averse to turning a buck with their newfound fame.

One interesting aspect of this article was Mr. Steyn playing the nationalist card in it, with the point that the American celebrity directors haven't exactly been hauled to the docket. He attributes it to the U.S. Department of Justice deciding to have a go at the malevolent Canadians. Normally in Canada, it's the left-Liberals who pull out the "unfair to Canadian" flag and use it as a drape cape - ostensibly, for the sake of...you guessed it, "public service."

Also: A briefer, humourful and somewhat ribald (in spots) piece by Ian Brown, about Conrad Black's recent near-silence, has been posted at the Globe and Mail's Website.

An important para-point about the trial, from "Small Dead Animals"

Over at the blog "Small Dead Animals," Kate observed that, had Conrad Black been Maurice Strong, he wouldn't have gotten the same level of Canadian press that he has gotten. She attributes this disparity to Canadian media insularity.

There's already lots of comments (44 as of the writing of this entry), some of which observe that Conrad Black is far less deserving of a show-trial rakeover that Mr. Strong, or Mr. Black's old enemy Jean Chretien, a former Prime Minister of Canada.

[Update: Kate at Small Dead Animals has added a link to this blog from that same "Conrad Black Trial: Jury Selected" SDA post, for which I thank her.]

The Trial Tour?

Mary Wisniewski, in the Vancouver Sun, has a Chicago tour guide for any Vancouverite, or Canadian of another sort, who wants to take a nice vacation there during trial time. Her guide includes: what hotels you should stay at; recommended restaurants; the courthouse itself as a tourist attraction (this same building hosted the Chicago 7 trial, in which Canadian singer Judy Collins sung a tune on the witness stand - literally); where the better shopping is; and, a recommended spa.

Ms. Wisniewski even recommended a Chicago Architecture Foundation tour, although she confines the temptation to in-joke to calling it a "docent." As far as I could tell, she didn't push it to the point where she compared Chicago to Paris. The Reliance building, as innovative as it was, isn't exactly the Eiffel Tower. (You'll find the source of the in-joke, as well as other Conrad Black trivia, here.)

[Yes, I had to look the word "docent" up. Hint, if you need one: it's etymologically derived from the German term privatdozent, meaning "a university-unpaid professor-in-waiting or lecturer." This one, I knew.]

Related factoid: The media organization she works for, CanWest, was the company that Hollinger sold the National Post to. The non-compete payments from CanWest, which were part of the entire deal between that company and Hollinger Int'l, form the heart of Count 8 and, indirectly, Count 9 of the indictment. All four defendants are charged in those two counts.

2003 Controversy over Roosevelt Biography

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Conrad Black's admiring biography of the former President, has been pointed to by Justin Raimondo as indicative of a certain hubris in Mr. Black and his neoconservative friends. "Lord Black, author of the recently published Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom, recently took libertarian Jim Powell to task for questioning the Roosevelt myth. Black retails the liberal-Marxoid misconception that FDR was somehow the 'savior of capitalism.'"

Raimondo goes on to note that Mr. Black could be described as one of those 'money changers' that President Roosevelt excoriated in 1933.

He ends that column's section devoted to Conrad Black with this cast-him-out: "Black's disgrace, and that of his cohorts, reveals the corruption at the heart of the War Party, and fairly defines the crony capitalism that will overshadow, destroy, and replace the free market if and when the empire-builders triumph." Evidently, Mr. Raimondo is anticipating a comeuppance.

Interesting fact from Mr. Raimondo's early (2003) mention of the case: Richard Perle headed up Hollinger Digital. Mr. Perle is listed as a potential witness.

[Thanks to Wikipedia for the link to Mr. Raimondo's column. They have more external links in the Conrad Black page.]

Not Saintly

In his latest column, Peter Worthington points out that prosecutors, and even law enforcement officials, have been prone to miscarriages of justice from time to time, recalling one from his own experience as a journalist: "Over the years, I've spent a lot of time on the case of Leonard Peltier -- convicted in the 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents during a range war on the Lakota Indian reserve of Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Peltier is in his 31st year in prison, even though the FBI fabricated evidence against Peltier, perjured themselves and have been proved liars in appeal courts."

More recent is the Duke lacrosse case. William Anderson, over at LewRockwell.com, has directly devoted his last four columns to the unravelling of the prosecution's case, and has written about it continually since April 15, 2006. Prosecutor Michael Nifong is now in serious hot water as a result of his conduct in the case.

[UPDATE: All charges against the three lacrosse-player defendants are being dropped.]

Neither of these are close parallels to the Conrad Black trial, but these exposures do show that the criminal justice system occasionally turns into a monster. So far, Mr. Black has been demonized little in the United States - far less than in Canada.

[One bad potential sign of a "feeding frenzy" is sanctifying the prosecutor. If Csr. Fitzgerald is portrayed all over the place as a saint during the trial, then such hagiographizing almost impels a 'balancing' social demonization - or even ostracism - of Conrad Black.]

Guess what item's propagating

faster than any other of today's Conrad Black Trial stories through the Net news services so far?

Someone [who it is won't exactly be a shock] who is keeping his mouth shut about his role in the trial, for now.

Witness List, Jury Questionnaire Gotten By The Trib...

That's what they've just reported. The jurors had to answer 78 questions, of which one (#57) is repeated verbatim in the item. Also, contrary to previous reports, Henry Kissinger is one of the potential witnesses: this story has several of them listed, near the bottom of it. [The Tribune also has a video clip embedded in the story.] Several other questions the jurors had to answer are in this write-up.

The Tribune staff didn't get their hands on the full list of witnesses, though; Judge St. Eve later ruled against their motion.

$28.7 Million, From Radler To...

...Sun-Times Media Group, through the SEC. According to this report, that's what the SEC has decided to do with the funds from the fine that makes up the settlement they've hammered out with Mr. Radler: send it back to what used to be Hollinger Inc.

Win some, lose one - or vice versa

According to this item, the prosecution is reaching for it a little, and Judge St. Eve is reining their presentation in somewhat. The judge did side with the prosecuting team with respect to one defense challenge, though.

Post-Selection BNN Clip

The clip, archived for the day at BNN's Website, is the 8:15 AM segment of "The Street." It had a 3-person-panel discussion about Conrad Black's image (the arrogance factor), and whether or not America's entrepreneurial clime would lead to sympathy for Conrad Black nonetheless. (This point, the host, Danielle Bochove, brought up as an approach the defense could take.) One panelist, Michael Kane, mentioned that Chicago is used to high-profile cases, has a full-service media, and also is inured to municipal corruption; he also brought up, though, a "precedent" (in the vernacular, not legal, sense of the term) that, if relevant in the minds of the jury, bodes ill for Mr. Black.

Also: Ms. Bochove mentioned the "systemic" problem resulting from more business-oriented people getting excused from jury duty, something I've called attention to myself. [It's in the second-last paragraph of this post.]

Supposedly, Patrick Fitzgerald Has A Blog...

...but, amongst major media organizations, only the BBC used to believe that "From The Desk of Patrick Fitzgerald" was/is written by him. [See the corrective note at the bottom of the BBC story for a retraction of the quotes that "From the Desk..." has, from the original version of the story in the March 15th entry.]

Incidentally: a quite ID-verified blogger for the Washington Post, Andrew Cohen, is advocating for replacing Alberto Gonzalez with Csr. Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney-General. On the other side is a thumbs-down from Tom Roeser, who nevertheless rates Csr. Fitzgerald as an excellent prosecutor.

Incentives and Bargaining

In an article unrelated to the trial that was posted to by the Drudge Report, there was a revealing sentence about enforcement of a plan to restrict water use in South Florida: "Neighbors will be encouraged to rat each other out for watering on the wrong day."

This trend is one I've observed occurring more frequently in the American justice system: the use of incentives to encourage people to "roll" on each other - to "defect," to use the language of game theory. Although this incentivizing is commonly associated with the War on Drugs, it's been a staple of securities cases ever since the 1980s. Those who've been following the trial already know its relevance.

To move directly to the trial itself, now on hiatus until Monday: A report in the Globe and Mail has a few factoids, about the jurors that didn't make the cut, which I haven't seen elsewhere.

Media Roundup: We Got Critics; Alana Black's Moment

From the Web news services, three pieces, all on the side of comeuppance:

1. The already-mentioned Andrew Clark of the Guardian, whose profile of Conrad Black strikes a note of pity for the fellow, but does contain the class positioning that is not atypical of the Guardian. His profile contains two tidbits, one naming the identity of the man who guessed at a possible "bewitching wife" strategy that the prosecution may use, and another about Conrad Black's elder son, Jonathan-David.

2. An opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette, whose readership is evidently still smarting at one or more of Conrad Black's cracks. The piece makes mention of the fact that 59% of Canadians don't sympathize with Conrad Black, and makes it very clear that he's not gonna be blaming Canada for this one. An unusual feature of this piece is the author herself taking Canadians to task for being "lazy" (but not envious), and thus being too dependent upon Americans. A sentence from it that should stick in the head: "Until he is acquitted, until he succeeds in exposing 'this case for what it is,' Black will be viewed as just another failed Canadian abroad - a commodity that seems in surprisingly large supply for such a milquetoast country as ours." Note; this piece is of the opinion that Conrad faces fourteen charges, not seventeen - and it manages to blend a yearning for comeuppance with the assumption that he'll be acquitted.

3. For straight-up colourful ranting, once again, the Aussies come up on top. Subscription required for this one, but you can cadge a free trial.

And...where there are critics, there are gamers. Courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times comes an item on an unearthed (alleged) bribery scandal in the building inspection department of City Hall. "Junior" Daley, the current Mayor of the place, expressed the opinion that the group of alleged bribers and bribees "wasn't as bad as Conrad Black, former CEO of the company that operates the Chicago Sun-Times on trial for allegedly stealing about $84 million from Hollinger International." I guess it depends upon who ya know...

And furthermore...Conrad Black's daughter, Alana, is becoming something of an item in two Toronto-based papers, the Sun and the Globe & Mail. There's also one from the Financial Post.

[UPDATE: The Times Online of London also has an item on Alana, a webbing of the same item printed up in the Sunday Times.]

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.

Peter C. Newman Weighs In On BNN

In addition to a lengthy wrap-up of the second trial day by Amanda Lang, BNN had Peter C. Newman, the author of the first biography of Conrad Black (The Establishment Man, 1982), giving his assessment of the trial. He too played up the class divide, and was of the opinion that the jury - indeed, even the city's residents - would find it hard to identify with the real Conrad M. Black. Mr. Newman's explanation of why Conrad Black got into so much hot water is, in Mr. Newman's opinion, that Black believes that he is a proprietor of any company he own a piece of and is the CEO of; thus, he tends to give ordinary shareholders only secondary thought when running a company.

Given this opinion, it shouldn't be very shocking to know that Mr. Newman thinks Conrad Black will be found guilty, unless David Radler can be blamed for all irregularities by the defense.

Judge's Questionings Are Over

According to a recent Bloomberg report, Judge St. Eve, as of lunchtime, had questioned 29 potential jurors, with nine more to go in the afternoon session. If the day goes on schedule, the prosecution and defense will present (or are presenting) any juror challenges, as based upon the questioning done by the judge but not any further questioning. Once the challenges are over with, the jury, including those eight alternates, will be selected.

[UPDATE: According to Stephen Skurka, the judge's questioning was finished as of 4 PM EDT. ]

Media Watch: The trial has gotten the notice of The Economist, and an online version of a Hong Kong newspaper, The Standard. The latter source describes the three potential jurors who lost as a result of earlier corporate implosions - one losing money on Enron, one whose husband lost on the stock market, and one who lost his pension two years before retirement - as "sore losers."

Relating?

On BNN's "Trading Day With Pat Bolland" (2:40 PM segment), securities attorney Andrew Stoltmann shared his thoughts on Conrad Black's jury appeal, noting that jurors are more likely to convict people they "don't like and can't relate to" and are less likely to convict people that they empathize with. Since the class element of the trial is being played up, it's of little surprise that both Csr. Stoltmann and the host, Pat Bolland, mentioned the class divide between Conrad Black and the typical jury member. Csr. Stoltmann also mentioned that juries see through a defendant bending over backwards to relate to them.

It's hard to see how Conrad Black can really act his way through this trial, or change his self-presentation at all other than by shifting from his formal style of speaking (in large part, a self-advertisement for his writings) to more informal means. He has done that before, mostly when he's been ticked off at someone.

Recent Web trial-related news items

Four of them:

1. From the Montreal Gazette, a paper in the city where Conrad Black was born: an item predicting that the jury selection will wrap up today, with a slightly different version of Judge St. Eve's explanation for the two extra alternate jurors than the one found in the post previous to this one. Quite a few other news Sites have published a substantially similar item.

2. From a Chicago TV station, CBS2 Chicago: a precis of the trial, with the not-newsy-up-here factoid that Conrad Black don't back down from a fight.

3. An item that contains four prominent potential witnesses, with the surprising disclosure that Henry Kissinger isn't on the list, even though Donald Trump is. Also on are three Canadians: an old friend and associate, Peter White; the current editor and publisher of Maclean's [its trial page here], Ken Whyte; and, funnily enough (given Conrad Black's own political views and style), Allan Rock, a dyed-in-the-wool Liberal and Cabinet Minister under Conrad Black's old foe, former Prime Minister Jean Chretien. [Official statement by the former PM about Black's citizenship here.]

(Latest word: Mr. Rock was put on the list by Peter Atkinson, not Conrad Black.)

4. Two markedly unsympathetic articles, one from Montreal and one from Australia. The first tries to match Conrad Black's "arrogance" with condescension; the second is more plainspokenly hostile.

Interesting BNN jury-selection factiod

On the 8:20 AM segment of "The Street," Amanda Lang disclosed that the reason why Judge St. Eve is planning for eight alternate jurors, instead of the customary six, is because, "in her experience, over the weekend between Thursday and Monday one or two of them will simply disappear."

Ms. Lang's entire report is archived at BNN.ca until early tomorrow morning.

There's already a media throng starting...

...and not just in Canada and the U.K., the two nations which, as of last night, seemed the only ones interested enough to bother sending correspondents to the Dirksen building. As of now, the American media isn't exactly sending a throng of correspondents over, but are beginning to post items on the trial in increasing numbers. It remains to be seen whether or not the American news value of the trial will change the cost-benefit calculations of the American media, which as of now have decided on letting the mousies do the flying. The Chicago Sun-Times is beginning to wake up, at least online.

There is a Time write-up on the travails of Conrad Black as of now, so the circus may yet be expanded from two rings to two side rings and one center (American) ring.

Another write-up appears in National Review Online courtesy of David Frum. [Mr. Frum has dispatches on the trial as a recurring feature in his blog.] There's an interesting personal angle with regard to Mr. Frum: he disclosed that his father-in-law, Peter Worthington [link kindly supplied by Mr. Frum], was covering the trial for Sun Media. Mr. Worthington is his wife Danielle's step-dad.

BNN Interview

There was a brief interview on BNN with Mark Zauderer, a lawyer and expert on jury selection. He, too, voiced the consensus opinion that Conrad Black was helped by his relative anonymity in Chicago, and that it would probably be a mistake for him to testify - but Csr. Zauderer supplied reasons for each, to wit and with paraphrase: when known, Conrad Black is often presented as "arrogant;" when deciding to testify, Enron's old CEO, Kenneth Lay, became the first CEO to approach the behavior of a suicide bomber when on the stand. (It could be argued by any apologists for him that remain, if any at all, that he did go down with his stock.)

No need to wonder why the legal experts' consensus has formed the way it did.

Brief fact file from Web reports

- Lord Black has asked that he be called "Mr. Black" while on trial. [Source.]
- Judge St. Eve got through 48 potential jurors, out of 100, yesterday, and dismissed 13 of them "for various reasons." [Source.]
- Judge St. Eve twitted Conrad Black's lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, for making a joke about being "'officially certified as "stupid" by the Illinois judge'." [Source.] She wound up laughing about the remark, though. [Source.]

Quick mention of an old CBC standard

Rex Murphy, CBC's "Point of View" commentator on "The National," has devoted his latest comment to the trial. It's fair, balanced, and somewhat embittered. Classic Rex.

Business News Network's Take On The Trial

This March 14th, there were four BNN news clips on the trial. (They're no longer available on BNN's Website, as only the shows for the day are webbed.) The first, the 11:11 AM "Market Morning with Lisa Oake and Marty Cej" segment, featured an interview in which Darryl Goldberg, a criminal defense attorney, gave his view that the jurors' sympathy would roughly track class lines, a consensus view. The second, a brief segment of the show "Lunch Money" (12 pm) contained a brief mention of the start of the trial, with an excerpt of Csr. Goldberg's interview featured in it. The next two clips were the 1:40 and 2:45 PM segments of "Trading Day with Patrick Bolland." The first was a progress report on the jury selection, and noted that Lord Black looked somewhat bored, except when his wife was complimented by a potential juror.

The second was more commentary-driven, with one of the commentators, Michael Miller, venturing that the prosecution will turn their case into "The Son of Enron" for the benefit of the likely-to-be blue-collar jury. The other, Al Foerster, noted that the knowledge level of the board of directors will likely be decisive. Despite pressure put on directors thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley, none of the board members scheduled to testify for the defense have "rolled," but they are likely to be cautious given the overhang of that law. I suspect that they would rather not "feel Conrad's pain" in that way. Mr. Bolland, I should note, is a veteran business reporter, an alum of both CBC News and CNN; he also has experience, prior to his move to journalism, in a Canadian brokerage house.

The most involved BNN coverage was the show "Squeeze Play with Amanda Lang and Kevin O'Leary," its 5 PM offering. (Ms. Lang was the BNN correspondent assigned to the case; a lengthy report by her, the first of two in the episode, took up close to ten minutes of the early part of it.) Four expert commentators appeared, the last one being more Canada-centric, and the consensus view was largely concurred with. Two interesting items were disclosed. One: Judge St. Eve is running the courtroom with a tight hand, and this is evident even in the jury selection and in the treatment of the media. Two, the case has received little publicity in the Chicago area, and few people in the neighbourhood seem to know who Lord Black really is. Interestingly enough, the view attached was that this lack of local attention should help the defense.

One minor quibble with BNN. Two of the anchorstaff said that the number of charges Lord Black faced was fourteen; it's actually seventeen. Despite that slip (and one other), the coverage is quite depthful, and it's evident that there is some sympathy for Lord Black in that network. Bottom line: if you're the Vindication sort, you'll like BNN's coverage.

Premiere Episode of "The Verdict"

Perhaps not by coincidence, the first episode of the new CTV News show, The Verdict With Paula Todd, has debuted tonight. The program was all about Conrad Lord Black, with most of it presenting an introduction to the man.

Ms. Todd referred to Lord Black as "Mr. Black" throughout the show, and her sympathies are evidently with the prosecution. Significantly, all of the guests she had on the show who had worked with Lord Black clearly sympathized with him. This juxtaposition of sympathies made for an interesting, if not nowadays unique, balance.

One of her first guests was the fellow who had written up the indictment of all four defendants. (I'm sure there will be lots of reminders that Lord Black is only one of four, because his presence will continually overshadow the three others. There are three other defense counsels, one for Mark Kipnis, once for Jack Boultbee, and another for Peter Atkinson.) He explained that the way to bring in big elephants like Lord Black was to put together a a pattern of activities which, in and of themselves, don't mean all that much, but mean something nefarious when strung together. The charges themselves are consistent with his words.

Bottom line? If you believe that the trial is Lord Black's comeuppance, you'll like this show. CTV News has thoughfully provided a broadband link of The Verdict on the show's Web page for those who are out of CTV's broadcasting range, or who are otherwise occupied during the 9 PM time slot.