Legal News

?Not A Potted Plant?: A Look at Ted Stevens?s Lawyer

By Amir Efrati

“I can’t do my job.”

“The government knew the documents were lies.”

“Dismiss it!”

Those words, uttered by Brendan Sullivan Jr. of Williams & Connolly, show how the Beltway Bigwig has been anything other than a “potted plant” in his defense of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who is on trial for allegedly failing to disclose $250,000 worth of gifts and services he received. By all accounts, the DOJ prosecution has been shaky, and Sullivan has capitalized on several mistakes by prosecutors. (See LB coverage here.)

“Mr. Sullivan, combining a calibrated theatricality and exhaustive preparation, has set Justice Department prosecutors on their heels and shaped the scope of much of the evidence to his liking,” NYT reported over the weekend. One of Sullivan’s tactics: expressing outrage after finding prosecutors didn’t turn over potentially exculpatory evidence.

“Given that holding the government closely to its disclosure obligations is a well-known strategy of Mr. Sullivan’s, experienced Washington lawyers who have sat in on the trial say they are stunned that the Justice Department government left itself vulnerable by repeatedly making mistakes,” reports NYT.

Legal Times also weighed in, noting that three weeks into the trial, which is taking place in Washington, the actions of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section have threatened to “doom the case.”

The judge overseeing the case, Emmet Sullivan has already instructing the jury to ignore some testimony and evidence because prosecutors had not played by the rules.

Among the mistakes: Judge Sullivan ruled that prosecutors redacted exculpatory information from an FBI report and belatedly turned over a clean copy the night Brendan Sullivan and his team were to cross-examine the government’s star witness, Bill Allen, who allegedly provided most of the gifts and services to Stevens. The judge also found prosecutors did not turn over a material document through discovery and presented to jurors business records from Mr. Allen’s former company that the government knew were false. For an update of today’s trial happenings, here’s the AP story.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 13, 2008 (boomark / email).