March 24, 2007
The trial of Conrad Black
Mark Steyn is blogging the Patrick Fitzgerald prosecution of the Conrad Black trial from start to finish. Here's a tidbit from his latest filing:
"Who knew? At this trial, the phrase "legal in Canada" has been imbued with such ominous undertones, Patrick Fitzgerald's junior attorneys might as well get out their instruments and start playing the theme from Jaws. Overnight, the land of confiscatory taxation has been transformed into the northernmost Cayman Island.
Benito Romano, counsel for Conrad Black's co-defendant Peter Atkinson, attempted to explain to the jury this wild lawless terrain across the 49th parallel. "They speak the same language. They play baseball," he said. "But they have their own laws." The prosecution looked for one moment as if they were about to rise en masse and yell, "Objection, your honour!" But the point was allowed to stand. Saudi Arabia has sharia and Canada has tax-free non-compete agreements. Just one of those freaky weird cultural differences. But by the laws of Noncompetistan, what Mr Atkinson did was perfectly legal.
In a way, Mr Romano was on to something: the strange jurisdictional overreach of the prosecution's argument. Mr Cramer's opening statement was crude in several particulars, but the implication that a trio of non-Americans and non-US residents arranging their affairs to comply with their country of citizenship and residence is in itself suspicious was certainly one of the more startling. "
I can't imagine having a wittier or more intelligent guide to the goings on in the Chiacgo courtroom.