Word: genson
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...Gillespie, also happens to be representing Cellini. Because of the conflict of interest, Gillespie had to step down from the former governor's defense team. That made him the second high-profile defense lawyer to drop Blagojevich since the saga began. Gillespie's partner, renowned Chicago criminal defender Ed Genson, left the case in late January after becoming frustrated that Blagojevich wouldn't heed his advice to stop giving interviews. Before he gave up the case, Genson complained that the surreal atmosphere at Blagojevich's impeachment trial had become like Alice in Wonderland. Federal prosecutors just have to hope...
...Cuckoo" was the response of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley after Blagojevich's latest news conference on Friday, the same day that Blagojevich's top defense lawyer, Ed Genson - never one to give up a fight - threw in the towel on the governor. "I have practiced law for 44 years," Genson said to reporters. "I never require a client to do what I say, but I do require clients to listen to what I say." Among other things, Genson said he wasn't being included in key decisions on whether to file suit to attempt to block the impeachment trial...
...taped conversations that aren't getting much attention now, dialogue that helps define the nature of all the pay-to-play politics talk. Defense lawyers will argue that politics is politics and that you can't hold someone criminally accountable for playing by the rules of the political game. Genson tried - unsuccessfully - to make the same point at the trial of Lawrence Warner, a co-defendant of Illinois' disgraced and incarcerated ex-governor George Ryan...
Smith suggests that Genson will probably try to get the jury to parse not just the words but what was intended by a conversation. "Who knows what's going on in somebody's mind when they say certain things?" says Smith. "But a jury is permitted to get into their minds and make a finding." Such a strategy would characterize Blagojevich and his co-defendants as experienced political operators who "made it to the top of the game; they're not losers. But one day they woke up to find out the rules had changed, and they can't believe...
Whatever the defense strategy, the trial is likely to be good theater. Genson and Fitzgerald have already been trading jabs in the legal back-and-forth during the impeachment proceedings and in the run-up to the indictment. They are playing to an audience that extends far beyond a potential jury pool, says Jack Doppelt, a lawyer, investigative journalist and professor at Northwestern University. All the talk of prosecution and defense what-ifs has an effect on constituents, who in turn talk to their political representatives, who can put pressure on other public officials. And all the talk...