Gotta pick a jury first:
"Defendant ‘Whitey’ Bulger meets potential jurors; Judge says trial to last months" by Shelley Murphy | Globe Staff, June 04, 2013
The hundreds of people reporting for jury duty Tuesday were startled to learn that one of Boston’s most legendary figures, and for years its most elusive, was seated just a few feet away.
“I’d like to introduce you to my client, James Bulger,” attorney J.W. Carney Jr. said with a flourish as the 83-year-old gangster slowly got to his feet, facing some 225 wide-eyed potential jurors seated in rows in the glass-enclosed jury assembly room.
“Good afternoon,” Bulger said softly, as men and women, young and old, some well-dressed and others in shorts and T-shirts, craned their necks to get a better view of the gray-haired gangster with wire-rimmed glasses. Some looked curious, others incredulous.
It was the first time Bulger appeared in court minus the orange jail-issued jumpsuit, which he will not wear during the trial because it could taint the jury’s view of him. He opted against the business garb favored by many defendants. Dressed in white sneakers, jeans, a khaki and navy-striped belt, and a long-sleeved dark shirt, Bulger looked fit as he sauntered into court with a confidence reminiscent of the way he appeared on State Police surveillance tapes from the 1980s.
As the first day of jury selection began in Bulger’s federal racketeering trial in US District Court in Boston, he was undoubtedly the center of attention at both the afternoon court session and an earlier one, where he greeted the first group of prospective jurors with a pleasant, “good morning,” drawing an enthusiastic chorus of “good morning” from the crowd.
US District Judge Denise J. Casper, who is presiding over the trial, greeted each panel with a pep talk about the importance of jury duty, a brief primer on the charges against Bulger, then broke the news that 12 jurors and six alternates culled from a jury pool of at least 675 will be hearing a case expected to last until the end of September, meaning they will have to forgo summer vacations....
The judge said that knowledge of Bulger, who gained worldwide notoriety while on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list, would not bar people from serving on the jury, as long they could put whatever they have heard aside and decide the case solely on evidence presented at trial....
“Mr. Bulger, like all defendants, is presumed innocent,” Casper told jurors.
The potential jurors filled out lengthy questionnaires, designed to determine whether there were any factors, such as bias or a connection to someone involved in the case, that would make them ineligible to serve.
Casper told jurors it was imperative that they answer all questions truthfully and to the best of their ability.
A couple of hundred more potential jurors are expected to report to court on Wednesday. The judge said prosecutors and defense lawyers will review the questionnaires, and then jurors who are not excused will be called back to court, some as early as Thursday, for further questioning.
The judge has authorized prosecutors to conduct criminal background checks of potential jurors who make it to the second stage of the selection process. In the final stage, prosecutors will have nine challenges and the defense will have 13, a process in which each side can excuse jurors without giving a reason.
Opening arguments could start early next week.
The judge ordered those in the jury pool not to discuss the case with anyone, including family or friends.
“Just tell them you were called for jury duty and you may need to return to the courthouse . . . nothing more,” Casper said.
Oh, you got the Bulger trial!
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"‘Whitey’ Bulger tries to bar several journalists from trial" by Milton J. Valencia and Shelley Murphy | Globe Staff, June 05, 2013
Federal prosecutors accused James “Whitey” Bulger Wednesday of including people he despises on his witness list, including several well-known journalists, in a strategy to bar them from the courtroom during his racketeering trial in federal court.
During a hearing Wednesday, Bulger’s lawyers asserted that the journalists may be called to testify and that they should not be able to hear any other testimony in the case.
But prosecutors said Bulger has targeted specific journalists to keep them out of the courtroom, saying he has been heard on recorded jailhouse conversations criticizing Boston Globe reporter Shelley Murphy and Globe columnist Kevin Cullen, two veteran journalists who recently published a book about him. In a letter to a friend, Bulger called Murphy a traitor and Cullen a low-life....
Typically, witnesses in cases are barred from a courtroom so they are not influenced by the testimony of others. Bulger’s lawyers have also named authors Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, both former Globe reporters, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr on a list of more than 80 potential witnesses. Prosecutors argued that the media figures have no connection to the case and that there is no reason to list them as witnesses.
Bulger’s lead lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., countered that prosecutors should have no say in his defense strategy, and said he would call the media figures to testify about their interviews with key witnesses in the case....
The back-and-forth was part of the lawyer’s last-minute scramble to set ground rules in the case before opening statements and testimony begin, and it foreshadowed the fireworks that are expected....
Carney argued Wednesday that the defense should be able to tell jurors that government lawyers have offered contradictory statements about the credibility of a key witness against Bulger, Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, depending on whether he was testifying for or against the government.
After Flemmi pleaded guilty in 2004 under a deal that sent him to prison for life for 10 murders, but spared him the death penalty, he was touted as a highly credible witness by prosecutors who used his testimony to help convict former FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr. of murder for his role in a 1982 slaying in Florida.
But when Flemmi was called to the stand by lawyers representing the families of Bulger’s alleged victims in wrongful death suits filed against the government, Justice Department lawyers from Washington urged the judges presiding over those trials to reject his testimony, which included chilling accounts of how Bulger allegedly strangled two women and shot an FBI informant.
“Mr. Flemmi is such a sick individual, it would seem difficult to render a judgment based on anything that he says,” a Justice Department lawyer said in 2009.
Carney argued that it is crucial for the defense to tell jurors about the government’s derogatory comments about Flemmi because he will be a major witness against Bulger....
But Assistant US Attorney Fred Wyshak argued that it would be an injustice if the statements by civil government lawyers were allowed at Bulger’s trial. He said judges in the civil cases clearly found Flemmi credible, because they awarded judgments to the families after finding the government was liable in the deaths. Furthermore, Wyshak said, those judges chastised the Justice Department lawyers for the way they handled the civil cases.
Casper took the matter under advisement.
Jonathan Albano, an attorney for the Globe, also urged Casper to reject the defense team’s request to sequester journalists, including Cullen and Murphy, saying it would violate not only the newspaper’s rights but also the journalists’ First Amendment rights....
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Related:
Tales are intimate as Bulger jurors screened
Time for opening arguments:
"Opening statements to begin in Bulger trial; Effort to delay start of trial denied as jury is impaneled in federal court" by Shelley Murphy, Milton J. Valencia and Martin Finucane | Globe Staff, June 12, 2013
After 18 years marked by FBI scandal, an international manhunt, and the discovery of secret graves, opening statements in a trial that many thought would never happen are scheduled to begin Wednesday in the sweeping federal racketeering case against notorious South Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.
A jury of eight men and four women, chosen Tuesday along with six alternates, will report to US District Court on South Boston’s waterfront for a proceeding that is expected to last through September, with gangsters, extortion victims, and relatives of the dead expected to testify about a bygone era when the 83-year-old Bulger’s name evoked power and fear.
“My nerves are in an uproar,” said Steve Davis, whose 26-year-old sister Debra was among the 19 people that Bulger is accused of killing in the 1970s and 1980s. “I never thought in my life, in my wildest dreams, that I would ever see this day. “
On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Denise J. Casper cleared the way for opening statements when she rejected a request by Bulger’s lawyer, J.W. Carney Jr., to delay the start until Monday. He wanted time to conduct his own investigation of State Police handling of John Martorano, a hitman-turned-government witness who is poised to testify against Bulger. Casper found that the State Police had conducted an extensive investigation and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Moments after the word spread on social media Tuesday that the jury had been chosen and sworn in for the long-anticipated trial....
Bulger, who was captured in Santa Monica, Calif., two years ago after more than 16 years on the run, has called the trial “The Big Show” in letters to a friend from jail. Courthouse personnel are bracing for possible record crowds....
“Keep an open mind,” Casper told the jury members....
Lawyers huddled with the judge while discussing potential jurors, so few details on the final jurors, identified in court by their numbers, were made public. Some of the more colorful people questioned a day earlier were excused, including the man who said he had been arrested for lewdness because he locked himself out of his apartment “butt naked out in the hallway.” Also dismissed was a young woman who recounted how she witnessed a shooting while smoking “weed” with people she just met.
After the newly sworn jury was excused for the day with orders not to read, tweet, post, or listen to anything about the case, Bulger’s lawyer erupted in fury during an angry courtroom confrontation with one of the prosecutors as the judge tried to assert control.
Carney accused prosecutors of failing to thoroughly investigate a state trooper’s complaint that a supervisor, Detective Lieutenant Stephen Johnson, interfered with his effort to investigate Martorano’s possible involvement in illegal gambling. Johnson was part of the team that built the case against Bulger. Martorano served 12 years in prison for 20 murders and has implicated Bulger in many of them.
“The government wants to cover this up and hide it,” bellowed Carney, who slapped the State Police with subpoenas Monday seeking internal reports on Martorano and several other former Bulger associates.
Assistant US Attorney Fred Wyshak said the state trooper’s complaint, initially made in an anonymous letter, had been discredited. Then he fired back at Carney, accusing him of being “unlawyerly” and unprofessional for attacking the government and making unsubstantiated claims to the media....
Related: "Assistant US attorney Fred Wyshak, typically fierce and combative, turned emotional, holding back tears."
Casper said she had reviewed the State Police internal reports and credited police with conducting an extensive investigation that found the trooper’s claims about Johnson were false. She quashed Carney’s subpoena for the State Police records and ruled the prosecution did not have to turn them over.
This trial is already being tilted.
Bulger’s relationship with the FBI will be a major issue in the trial. The indictment alleges that Bulger developed corrupt relationships with FBI agents, who protected him from prosecution and leaked information to him that led to the slayings of three FBI informants and a potential witness.
The Globe reported in 1988 that Bulger was an FBI informant, then nine years later the FBI acknowledged that fact when ordered by the court to disclose it. But Bulger denies he was ever an informant and insists his voluminous informant file was concocted by his handler.
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Also see:
On Day 1, defense declares Bulger a criminal operator
Strategy for ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s defense unfolds
Excerpts of opening statements from Bulger trial transcript
Defense sketching out a fantasy land
To many, Bulger trial is the biggest show in town
Update: ‘Whitey’ Bulger investigator grilled by defense
