June 28, 2007

What’s Egyptian mythology got to do with it?

Siegelman attorney George Blakey spoke for about an hour this morning and it’s pretty safe to say that he lost the genuine attention of almost everyone in the media room.

According to The Scrushy Report, Blakely is a professor from Notre Dame – and it shows. So far this morning, he’s read from the Bible, discussed Egyptian mythology, brought up John Locke and submitted a lengthy laundry list of former United States governors who have been convicted of crimes and how much time they received, all of which were substantially more serious than the bribery charge Siegelman’s been convicted of and received less time that’s being considered for the former governor at this point.

I believe Blakey was supposed to be arguing in favor of downward departure, which I discussed in my previous post, but honestly? I felt more like we received a dry, meandering history lecture. Blakey is obviously a smart man who knows his stuff, but a speech of this kind on the third day of these proceedings is a bit trying.

According to Fuller, we’ve still got to hear from the prosecution and their arguments for upward departure and then I believe Siegelman will be allowed to make a statement himself regarding the proceedings. The seven character witnesses the Scrushy side intends for us to hear from haven’t even been addressed yet in any real fashion, only mentioned, so I think we’re still a long way off from receiving the actual sentence.