Today was all Jonnie Williams, and we got hints about how each party is going to treat Williams. The government is trying to portray Williams as all business, no romance. Maureen McDonnell’s lawyers want him to seem like someone who could charm Maureen, and Bob McDonnell’s lawyers are likely to go after him with the knives out.
The government’s star witness got done with his direct examination by the prosecutor, and cross-examination had just begun by Maureen McDonnell’s attorney; at 5:30, Judge Spencer recessed the trial, saying “I can’t take another second.”
As always, this post is not intended to take the place of news articles; if you want a good summary of the day’s events, look at the the Richmond TImes-Dispatch article or the Washington Post article. For a look at what is happening in the courtroom, I recommend real-time Tweets from a WTVR reporter.
On direct examination, Williams sketched out a relationship that was all business — “I needed the Governor’s help. There was no romance.” He described Maureen (mostly) and Bob (sometimes) asking for all kinds of favors — Maureen wanted Bob to have a Rolex, Maureen wanted Bob to be allowed to drive Williams’ Ferrari, Maureen wanted Williams to fund a new car for a McDonnell child. There was a loan of $50,000 to help the McDonnells with their apparently crushing debt load. And then another loan of another $20,000, FedExed to McDonnell from Williams. And a vacation on Cape Cod over Labor Day, 2011, with a bottle of Louis XIII cognac that retails for over $3,000 a bottle. (Williams said he didn’t even like the stuff — he preferred a milkshake.) The figure of $165,000 has been bandied about for the gifts that Williams gave to the McDonnells, but that figure doesn’t include any measure of the often excessive hospitality that Williams extended to people who he said he didn’t even count among his friends. He told the jury that he socialized with the McDonnells because it gave him personal credibility to be seen with the Governor — not because he particularly liked the guy. This went on for about a full day, with photos of fancy houses and copies of canceled checks and e-mails.
Maureen McDonnell’s lawyer began his cross-examination by asking Williams about how he got started with Star Scientific and how he got started with Anatabloc, and Williams opened up. As the WTVR reporter said, “Jonnie is having no trouble talking about Jonnie….he has spent the last 15 minutes discussing his success and how he invented Anatabloc.”
So why would the McDonnells want to build him up? To give the jury a view of the Jonnie Williams who could draw in a First Lady, who could shower attention on her and who could convince her that she needed to help him and Star Scientific, and to convince Bob to do the same. For better of for worse, Maureen’s defense strategy is what I call the Days of Our Lives defense — a loveless marriage, an empty nest, a work-a-holic husband who was never around, a rich man paying attention to her, a crush on him, and him doing favors for her for whatever ulterior motive of his own. That only works if Williams seems able to charm a woman. The government’s version of Williams was not particularly charming. So how do you get someone to be charming? Ask him to talk about himself. And by all accounts, it worked.
My prediction for tomorrow is for a “good cop/bad cop” routine between the two defense lawyers. William Burck, for Maureen, will emphasize the friendship between Jonnie and Maureen. He will probably have Williams read out loud some of his 1200 tweets and e-mails with Maureen, some of which will be filled with friendly language. If Williams tries to walk back from some of the friendly stuff in the e-mails, though, Burck will have a LOT of cross-examination material, and he will surely not be reluctant to use it.
John Brownlee, or whichever of Bob’s attorneys handles cross-exam, will probably be the opposite. He will want to get Williams to admit — hopefully as many times as possible — that Williams was lying. Lying to the federal investigators, lying in his tweets and e-mails with Maureen, etc. The best of all worlds for the defense would be for the jury to see Jonnie Williams being a charming salesman Thursday afternoon and a liar on Friday. And the important point is not just that he tells lies; it is that he tells lies when he thinks that the lies will help him get what he wants. He lied when he expressed his friendship for the McDonnells because he needed help from the Governor’s office that he thought he needed. He lied to the federal investigators early in the investigation, because he needed to distract attention from his attempts at bribery, or from his $10 million securities fraud. And, ladies and gentlemen of the jury (the closing argument will go), he lied to the prosecutors when he started testifying against the McDonnells, because he needed an immunity deal to get him out of all of these other allegations and the virtual certainty of a long prison sentence.
There is a LOT to cross-examine Jonnie Williams on, and the cross-examination on his pattern of lying will be one of the key moments for the prosecution’s case.
There are two basic premises of advocacy that are at work in placing Jonnie Williams in this spot in the trial — primacy and recency. Williams is the star witness for the prosecution; he must not only be believed, but his testimony must be remembered. It has to make an impression on the jury that will last for another month.
Primacy is the idea that what we learn first about something is crucial. What we learn about first about the McDonnells colors everything else we learn about them for the rest of the trial. For the rest of the trial, jurors will remember the big, heavy Rolex that they all held in their hands. They will remember the picture of a smiling Bob McDonnell behind the wheel of Jonnie Williams’ Ferrari.
Recency is the idea that what we learn about last is crucial. In the context of a trial, recency doesn’t only refer to what you hear at the end of the case; it refers to what you hear before an overnight, or a weekend, recess. If this case goes tomorrow as I expect, the questioning of Jonnie Williams will end Friday afternoon. The jury will carry their memory of Williams into the weekend, and it will sit in their minds all weekend. Memories will be formed and reformed, both consciously and unconsciously, and how they come to court on Monday morning will be affected by how Williams holds up. The government is betting that he will hold up well enough so that the mental synthesis that will go on over the weekend will be favorable to the government.
If I were defending the McDonnells, I would want to make sure that the last thing they hear from me at the end of my cross-exam was a particularly damaging question. Likewise, if I am the prosecutor, with a chance at re-direct testimony, I will want to save a good “zinger” to ask at 5:15 PM Friday afternoon.
That’s what advocacy is all about.
