Attorneys for prosecution and defense gave their opening statements this afternoon in the Calvin Boender trial. This is the case in which Boender is accused of providing $37,000 to Alderman Ike Carothers (in the form of home repairs) in exchange for a zoning change on the Galewood Yards project. Did he do it? Ike Carothers says he did, but then Carothers is getting a reduced sentence for saying so. We shall see.
The opening statements were an interesting show. The prosecution went first, as is traditional. I don't know if Brandon Fox has ever given an opening statement before but he had a moderate case of stage fright. Loosen up, man!
But that said, he did a good job of succinctly laying out a case. There are five counts, and he just followed through each count. If you didn't find his stiff demeanor distracting, it was pretty clear what he was saying, and he gave the jury a conceptual framework that they can use to arrange the evidence as it comes in.
The same cannot be said for the defense opening statement, which was twisted and confusing as hell. Assuming that confusing the jury isn't Mr. Sanger's deliberate strategy, the defense opening was a lost opportunity to create a conceptual framework that the jury could choose instead of the prosecutor's framework. I don't think anyone heard the first minute or two of his talk, because his investigator was trying to set up these giant 4-foot by 5-foot photographs that kept falling off the easel, again and again and again. The Marx Brothers or Jerry Lewis couldn't have done more distracting slapstick.
Boender's lawyer kept using technical terms and unnecessarily formal language. One of the strangest moments for me was when Sanger referred to Galewood Yards as "...the parcel that was owned by the entity that Mr. Boender was part owner of..." Jesus, dude, who can parse that, especially at the end of the day? There was the time when he spent a good minute on the difference between a PD, a PUD, and a PMD. There was the long list of potential tenants and/or buyers that didn't seem to fit into any bigger picture. There was a dissertation on the flight of manufacturing jobs from the City. But the point of all of this was never made. Facts recited in apparently random order, with no point or framework won't be remembered or used in deliberations.
Boender's lawyer also seemed to accept the prosecution's perspective that Boender was a one-man show, making all the decisions and taking all the actions for what must have been a fairly large operation. And although I understand why he wanted to say that the project ended up being a huge improvement for the benefit of the city and nearby residents, he kept saying that the empty lot had been a nest of criminality, with people "maybe dumping bodies, certainly animal carcasses." Five minutes later it wasn't "maybe" anymore, just another mention of "dumping bodies." Really, that's the imagery you want to bring?
The big theme of the day was the Famous Invoice. But that will have to wait for another post.