On the Scene at Dewey & LeBoeuf Jury Selection

05/04/15
REUTERS

In a downtown Manhattan courtroom, assistant district attorney Peirce Moser briefed a crowd of would-be jurors on what to expect over the four to six months it’ll take to try three former leaders of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf on criminal fraud charges.

“Unlike on TV, no one’s going to run in at the last minute with the crucial piece of evidence that changes the whole case,” Mr. Moser said on Friday.

Mr. Moser and attorneys for the three defendants–Dewey’s ex-chair Steven Davis, former executive director Stephen DiCarmine, and ex-chief financial officer Joel Sanders–culled through hundreds of potential jurors over five days last week.

So far, just three jurors have been selected of the 12 jurors plus 6-8 alternates that will be needed to weigh whether Dewey’s three former leaders deceived investors, banks and others about the deteriorating condition of the law firm’s finances. The former leaders have denied any wrongdoing. Dewey collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in May 2012, becoming the largest law firm ever to fail.

So far, the fate of Messrs. Davis, DiCarmine and Sanders rests in the hands of a female high school graduate who works as a law firm receptionist, a supermarket deli clerk who lives with her mom, and a single, male trader who studied physics and technology.

The three are a departure from the typical jurors that trial experts say are selected for six-month-long trials.

“You get a lot of people who have time on their hands,” Philip Anthony, chief executive of trial consulting firm DecisionQuest, said last week. That includes retirees, the unemployed, those who rely on a spouse for income, and government workers, who are typically paid for jury service.

In a packed courtroom Friday, about 90 potential jurors waited to be questioned by a judge and lawyers about their ability to be fair and impartial in the case. The prosecution and defense huddled around lists of notes on each prospective juror, all of whom had already answered two lengthy questionnaires to determine their availability, their hobbies and beliefs, and to explain any prior experience with accounting and law firms.

“Jury service can be inconvenient,” New York state court Judge Robert Stolz told the crowd. “It is a necessity to our democracy.”

Joining the huddle at the defense table was Julie Blackman, a jury and trial consultant who is well known to white-collar defendants. Ms. Blackman has previously advised Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam, who is serving an 11-year sentence for insider trading; former SAC Capital Advisors senior employee Michael Steinberg, convicted by a jury in 2013 of insider trading (Mr. Steinberg is challenging his conviction); former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre, found liable in 2013 for defrauding investors; and Mr. Rajaratnam’s younger brother, Rengan, who was found not-guilty last year of conspiracy to commit insider trading.

The prosecution and defense had no trouble agreeing Friday on the elimination of several would-be jurors, like the government employee whose friend was abruptly laid off from Dewey predecessor firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, the woman who has to care for her ailing husband or the sunglasses-wearing Gramercy Park resident who said he’s suing the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Both sides also used a handful of their 15 allocated strikes, which offer wide latitude to cut jurors for nearly any reason. The prosecution cut a young woman who had tweeted about jury selection earlier in the day. The defense axed a retired nurse’s assistant whose son had a brush with the law.

The three defendants sat at a table nearby while their lawyers pressed jurors on whether they feel like a boss should know everything going on in a company and whether they’d hold it against someone for making a $2 million annual salary.

Before the jurors filed into court, Mr. DiCarmine sat reading a book about yoga. He’s been doing a lot of ashtanga yoga, he said, and lately has been riding his bike to a yoga studio in Manhattan’s Alphabet City.

Jury selection continues this week. Opening arguments are Thescheduled to begin May 26.

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