Word: bulow
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...mornings after a Providence jury acquitted Claus von Bulow, his defense lawyer, Thomas Puccio, arrived at his brand-new office in the Wall Street firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. He was just in time to settle a dispute between his secretary and a decorator over where to put the black leather sofa and chair in relation to his black lacquer desk and bookcase. The firm's partner of two months should be greeting many a new client from behind that desk. For in the wake of his Von Bulow victory last week, commentators across the country are suddenly ranking...
Also "indefatigable," says Lawyer Stephen Kaufman, who once lost to Puccio. "There is a saying that 'litigation is more perspiration than inspiration.' He excels at perspiration." Puccio and his four-member defense team began sweating over the Von Bulow case in late 1984. Earlier that year the Rhode Island Supreme Court had reversed the Danish-born aristocrat's 1982 conviction on charges that he twice tried to kill his socialite wife Martha ("Sunny") von Bulow with insulin injections; since 1980 she has lain in a coma from which she is expected not to recover. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz...
During the second trial's opening statements in April, the prosecution told the jury it would show that Von Bulow had sought to murder the heiress so he could inherit the millions he was promised in her will and marry his then mistress, former Soap Opera Actress Alexandra Isles. But some of the promised proof was never introduced. With carefully crafted motions, raising such issues as relevance and prosecutorial failure to lay necessary legal groundwork, Puccio persuaded Judge Corinne Grande to exclude Sunny von Bulow's will, testimony from her financial adviser and evidence that Von Bulow knew...
After performing those feats of damage control, Puccio narrowed his own case to one clear, pointed counterpunch. No crime had been committed, he declared, because Mrs. Von Bulow had never been given any insulin. A series of medical experts backed his contention that there was no firm proof of insulin injection. With much of the circumstantial evidence against Von Bulow in tatters, most lawyers agree that the jury had little choice. But some disparaged Puccio's performance. "What victory?" snorted one former colleague. "Against a prosecutor with little experience and a judge who leaned his way?" Others were more impressed...
...Sunday, they planned to re-examine the testimony of Maria Schrallhammer and Alexander von Auersperg on the whereabouts of a black bag containing a used syringe, as well as that of an expert defense witness concerning the presence of insulin on the needle. While they continued to deliberate, Von Bulow, chain-smoking and chatting with reporters, roamed the mostly deserted hallways of the Providence courthouse...