Last week, it was the “will-he-won’t-he” drama surrounding Rod Blagojevich‘s testimony, coupled with the self-publicized rift between attorneys Sam Adam Sr. and Sam Adam Jr. on what would be the right course of action in the former governor’s corruption case.
On Monday, the younger Adam threw down the gauntlet in red-faced insolence, declaring to the court (and later, to reporters chasing him down Dearborn Ave.) that he believed so much in the innocence of his client, he would go to jail to for him. Judge James Zagel had ruled that Adam would not be permitted to invoke the missing-witness defense (challenging the government for not calling convicted lobbyists Stuart Levine and Tony Rezko) in his summation.
The day ended with Adam Jr. –– best known, up until this point, as the man who delivered the closing arguments in the R. Kelly child-pornography case –- suggesting now that he may not deliver the final words on behalf of Blagojevich.
“He is so far over his head,” said Jeff Cramer, a former Assistant U.S. attorney who is now managing director for the consulting firm Kroll.
Presuming they weren’t the signs of a meltdown, experts say Adam Jr.’s histrionics at the end of court Monday ultimately proved to be an unwieldy way of accomplishing two simple goals:
1. Stall for time so that he could give his entire closing argument on the same day.
2. Lay the groundwork for an appeal.
Cramer argues that Adam Jr.’s words would carry more weight if he kept to the judge’s schedule, and delivered the first third of his summation on Monday.
“Tactically, you want the jury to hear the first 45 minutes and sleep on it,” said Cramer. “Otherwise, they are just sleeping on the government. So tactically it doesn’t make sense.”
Lawyers say that Adam Jr. at least has a valid appellate point in arguing that Zagel should allow him to call into question the witnesses the prosecution failed to call. He acknowledged on Monday that his side had the same opportunity to subpoena these witnesses as the government did, and ultimately chose not to call anyone. Some judges, legal observers note, are willing to allow both sides to argue and counter-argue about uncalled witnesses before the jury. Zagel decided against it.
“Giving Sam the benefit of the doubt, that is not an unreasonable argument because in other courtrooms they might be able to say it,” said Cramer. “The problem that Sam has is this judge made a ruling, and, ‘Judge, I’m not going to comply with the ruling’ is not one of the options.”
So what does all this mean?
“Much ado about nothing!” says Kent-Chicago Law School professor Richard Kling. “The judge is correct in his ruling, and even if wrong, lawyers make records for appeal, if necessary; we don’t threaten judges that we will violate their orders. It doesn’t accomplish anything except engendering anger, and certainly doesn’t help the client.”
Separately, on Monday, Zagel denied a motion by press organizations to release the names of the individual Blagojevich jurors prior to the verdict being read. In his 37-page order, Zagel reiterated points that he had previously made to lawyers in court.
“It is true that the possibility of jurors being inappropriately contacted by phone is not a new one,” Zagel wrote, “but the possibility of contact by e-mail or through social networking sites is relatively recent, and the ubiquity of the media is astounding.”
The judge added: “While some may be quick to discount a conspiracy theorist and forger, it is highly likely that a juror would be disturbed that such people have been able to obtain their personal contact information. It is easy to see how contact like this could interfere with a jurors’ ability to perform his sworn duties.”