WRTV6 had an interview with the jury foreman in Charlie White’s criminal case. The interview makes it seem as if White stood a chance of acquittal if he had testified or if the defense had put on evidence of its own.
Speaking for the first time since White was convicted of six felony charges early Saturday, foreman Gregg Weidman said it was a shock when White’s attorney, former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, rested his case without calling any witnesses.
“I don’t know if you saw the reaction when Mr. Brizzi said he wasn’t going to call anybody, but I looked around the jury, and everybody’s eyes were about this big, like, you have to be kidding,” Weidman told RTV6’s Derrik Thomas.
Inevitably, folks are second guessing White’s lawyer, Carl Brizzi. I wouldn’t be so fast. Maybe he made a poor decision, but we don’t know what information he was working on when he made the call. Perhaps one of White’s witnesses in the Recount civil matter was not going to be willing to give such helpful testimony in the criminal matter. Maybe he knew that White’s own testimony was likely to fall apart under cross-examination or to simply reinforce the evidence that the defense had put on. Maybe he feels like, on appeal, there is some critical deficiency that will go in his favor but which could have been remedied by the prosecution while White or other defense witnesses were on the stand.
I’m not a criminal lawyer, and maybe it was simply a bad gamble on the part of Brizzi, but I think the possibility exists that he did the best he could with what he had to work with.
Update The Indiana Law Blog has an entry noting some differences between the WRTV6 write up of the interview and the video itself. Per ILB:
So I just watched the video that is available online, and have a third version — about 1:23 into the video, the juror says instead, when asked if testimony would have made a difference, and noting it would have added 3 or 4 hours to the deliberations: “It would have made his case a lot stronger.”
Having heard White speak about his case several times I think it is safe to say that him testifying would have only made things worse. At the first sign of trouble White would have gone into his “Rainman” trance state where he starts accusing Bayh, Daniels, Lugar, etc. of also not living in their voting districts.
Jackson, you didn’t need to call Charlie White. Putting his ex-wife on the stand would have almost assured his acquittal. White had already won in front of the Election Commission on the factual issue that constituted the six felonies he had been convicted of. He won by presenting evidence, including the testimony of White, his wife and ex-wife. Charlie White actually did remarkably well during very tough cross-examination in that proceeding.
I agree with Doug that there must have been more to the story…like possibly witnesses for White were threatened with perjury charges if they testified for him. That most assuredly has happened with Michelle as she was named a target of a grand jury investigation following her testimony in front of the White grand jury that indicted the former SOS.
I would add, Jackson, White is exactly right about selective prosecution when it comes to voter fraud. Unfortuantely that’s not admissible evidence in the criminal case, but it most certainly should be something that we the public schould be concerned about. Our laws should apply equally to everyone. Being politically popular shouldn’t give you a pass to avoid complying with the voter fraud/perjury laws.
I kind of felt bad for White on his Fox interview.It is clear that the man is out of touch with reality. His eyes look like he is on some serious meds. His irrational comments and the total lack of understanding the situation is really sad.The poor guy just needs to fade away and spend some quality time with his hot mistress/wife.
Is it possible that Brizzi is just not a good lawyer?
Well, yeah, that’s certainly a possibility!
Doug…Im not an attorney but I understand the term “mistrial”.
Is that possible and could that be the plan underneath all of this?
So if White had put on evidence that required the witness to lie, White might have gotten off? Isn’t that true of every single criminal case?
Well, I think Paul (and he is obviously welcome to correct me if I’m wrong) is implying that the Prosecution may have pressured witnesses into refusing to testify as to the truth by threatening bogus perjury charges.
Whereas I think it’s more likely that friendly witnesses may have been less willing to stretch (or break) the truth in a criminal case than in an administrative, election case because facing a perjury charge for someone who is actually lying is more likely to arise from the former case than the latter.
I concur with what Doug is saying. I would add that although that putting on a defense in many cases doesn’t assure acquittal, the fact is White had already won in front of the Election Commission on exactly the same factual question constituting the six felony charges of which he was convicted. And in criminal case it is a much higher burden of proof for the prosecution than the EC. I would further add that the prosecution’s case was built entirely on circumstantial evidence. It was a big pile of circumstantial evidence, mind you, but White matched the circumstantial evidence in front of the EC and played the ace card of the direct witnesses in that proceeding.
This is the type of case where since the prosecution had no witnesses to verify where White was living, one witness introduced by White could have easily have tipped the scales in his favor.
I think it quite possible that the witnesses were told if they testified for the White in the criminal case they might be charged for perjury. (Granted they could have done the same thing with respect to the EC testimony, but they wouldn’t have been the prosecutors to make that decision. ) Remember it came out that the prosecutors had made Charlie White’s wife a target of a grand jury investigation for perjury for testifying for White at the grand jury proceeding. I don’t know how they possibly could have evidence she lied, but it might have been enough to spook her. Maybe White fell on the knife for his wife, ex-wife and her husband, choosing not to force them to risk being made the target of the prosecutors.
I cannot imagine a narcissist like Charlie White falling on a knife for anybody. Isn’t in the personality profile.
Still, there must be something else that we’re all missing (and probably will never find out).
I tend to agree with you.There has to be more to this that we will never know about. I find it hard to believe that Carl would put his entire reputation on the line for this whack job.
I always thought of Carl as a pretty sharp guy.He was able to wind his way through the political maze and get elected. But he may have really screwed himself time time.He will now forever be known as Whites lackey.
The Prosecution could have called White’s ex-wife as their own witness. They didn’t. Maybe the Prosecutors wouldn’t believe her.
Neighbors of the ex-wife could have been called by either side. Did you
as his neighbor see his car there overnight most nights?
While I ordinarily wouldn’t bring children into this, any of his children could have been called as a witness on the same issue,
assuming they were old enough to remember.
The current wife could have been called as a witness.
I don’t know what Brizzi said in his opening statement, but some jurors take offense when a defense attorney says “the evidence will
show….” and then the defendant’s attorney fails to deliver that evidence during the case.
Brizzi sank White’s ship by not putting anyone on to testify
during the opportunity to cast doubt on the Prosecutor’s witnesses.
BTW, Rahm Emanuel successfully met the challenge to get past a Chicago election commission proceeding where there was testimony that he had left boxes in the storage room of the basement of the house that he had rented to his tenant, so he must have intended
to remain a Chicago resident.
Tom Wheeler – chair of the recount commission – said you can’t compare the civil and criminal findings because the evidence was different. For instance, the recount commission didn’t get the cell phone records. And the criminal jury didn’t get the ex-wife, whom Wheeler called White’s best witness.
I think Brizzi actually made a good move not putting White himself on due to his tendency to focus on Bayh, Lugar etc.. I don’t think saying everyone does the criminal activity is a good defense to the criminal activity.
Also, and I’m not saying this is the case, Brizzi is bound by legal ethics. I don’t think he is allowed to put someone on the stand he reasonably believes will commit perjury. So maybe he had his own questions and was protecting himself.
I am late to the White issue and light on all the operative facts. But any thought on sentencing? The felonies are Class D so the judge may sentence White to Class A misdemeanor under IC 35-50-2-7. Would White’s comments about selective prosecution and Daniels, Bayh and Lugar indicate a lack of remorse or understanding of the gravity of his offense and incline the judge to sentence as a felony?
I note the Indianapolis Star has reported that Carl Brizzi has been hospitalized with a stress-related heart attack. I wonder if that will result in a delay of the sentencing?