Following up on my previous blog about the art of biography, I remember a conversation I had in 2007 with a criminal defence lawyer during the Chicago trial of Conrad Black and several co-defendants. The lawyer was clearly trying to influence my judgment, since he knew I was writing the book, and he regularly saw me being interviewed by television reporters on Dearborn Street outside the Everett M. Dirksen Courthouse. I was both flattered and dismayed by this exchange. I wanted above all not to be used.
According to a paraphrase written down after the fact, the lawyer told me the following:
“My client has been unjustly accused. He is being pursued – no – persecuted by the deep state, a dark governmental conspiracy which is projecting its secretive and tyrannical power, warping the law in order to crush each defendant. The justice system needs a steady flow of convictions in order to sustain itself. Government prosecutions result in convictions 95% of the time, which leaves the defendant one chance in twenty of being acquitted. Many defendants accept plea deals simply because they cannot afford to defend themselves in court. The government offers immunity to low-level defendants in order to obtain and even to fabricate evidence against higher-level defendants. My client worked extremely hard to build up value in the corporation he helped lead. He may at times have been poorly advised; he may at times have addressed the big picture rather than focus on the details. But intent is a crucial element in a fraud charge, and at no time did my client knowingly commit the offences of fraud and obstruction of justice – the offences basically of wilfully diverting money from a publicly-traded corporation into private hands, and thwarting any investigation of what he may have done. The government is intent on crushing my client in its relentless self-promotion; it wants to destroy him, his liberty, his family, his reputation, his life savings.”
This was not one of Mr. Black’s lawyers by the way. The lawyer was doing his best to get me to see things his way, which means he wanted me to ignore what was really happening in the courtroom. So you see, there’s nothing particularly new about conspiracy theories!
I was taken aback by this encounter. Whereas the lawyer wanted me to believe his client was unjustly being persecuted, attending the trial in person led me to an altogether different conclusion: Make sure you never do anything that leads to being charged in a criminal case, because by the time you get to court, it is too late to change your fate.
Defendants often scream they are not getting a fair trial. Once the big operators get charged, they spread disinformation through aggressive media campaigns, suborning witnesses and intimidating judges, prosecutors and members of juries. As if they were above the law, and their power gave them the right to an unfair trial.