Libby Trial: Oncoming Train [View All]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/01/25/libby-trial-oncoming-train/#more-6800

Excerpt from a long post by Christy Hardin Smith, former attorney, who has been live-blogging the Libby trial at FireDogLake:

. . .

To pull this sort of stunt during trial is a slap at the authority of the court and its very detailed, very specific orders — and the judge's very careful and thorough consideration of the defendant's rights to this very closely guarded, very difficult to obtain information regarding some highly classified national security matters. Judge Walton was clearly not happy, but was still leaning toward a ruling that left the information somewhat on the table for Team Libby until Wells could not stop himself from "giliding the lily" — Wells started arguing that CIA witnesses "should not be believed" because of their biases toward the Vice President's office, and that he should be able to argue that to the jury based on Schmall's briefing notes. Judge Walton informed Libby's legal team that he would not permit an argument on a memory defense at closing absent testimony from Libby, because otherwise the memory defense was not relevant to the proceedings…and that ended the argument, and the judge agreed to issue a terse cautionary instruction on the CIPA information and questions that Mr. Cline had asked, and we went on to the next legal argument.

Which was a mistake for Libby's legal team.

Ted Wells, lead trial counsel for Libby, completely overstepped in making an argument regarding some handwritten notes of the government's witness, Cathie Martin. Libby's trial team had been given copies of these notes a year or more ago, but just got around to asking to see the originals of the notes this past Saturday. Wells was arguing that the copies given by the government were illegible (Fitzgerald countered that they were not and that, were there problems reading any pages, Wells' team had had a year to notify the government and request a better copy, and had failed to do so until last Saturday). Wells then argued that they had not had enough time to read the notes, due to the numer of documents which needed review — Wells made a big deal about the sheer volume of documents.

Huge error.

As it turned out, the sum total of all of Cathie Martin's handwritten notes in their original form totalled less than an inch of paper, most of which were not relevant to the proceedings at all. Those documents which corresponded with the government's intended exhibit proffer were a grand total of six pages. In making an argument which was built on a foundation of very hot air, Wells lost credibility with the judge, with the government, and worse for his client, with those in the media and public gallery.

In a town where reputation and power is everything, Libby's entire legal team was diminished in a matter of minutes with this one, petty, groundless and unnecessary stunt.

. . . more