Alan Dershowitz, yesterday
My respect for Alan Dershowitz deepens, and it was quite deep already. He said this yesterday:
The Republican majority on the panel has selected Arizona county sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell for the job, but the issue with her, according to Dershowitz, is she likely lacks experience in cross-examination.
“I want to see the greatest engine of truth ever invented used effectively, namely used a cross-examination. And I’m worried that we don’t have the right people. The woman who has been hired to conduct the cross-examination has probably rarely ever cross-examined anybody,” he said on Fox News.
Dershowitz went on to say Mitchell’s decades of experience won’t save her.
“She’s a prosecutor. Prosecutors put on cases and mostly defendants don’t take the stand. So this is a woman with 20 years of experience as a prosecutor but no experience as a defense attorney, so I don’t think she’s the right person to question Dr. Ford,” he said.
Oh, that is very good and helps me understand Mitchell’s inability do damage to Ford’s credibility and emphasize her contradictions, vagueness, and changing story. I wonder if the Republican committee members did not realize that they were playing defense? If so, it was a terrible lapse.
Chuck:
Right now, though, I think Kavanaugh is doing some damage to Ford’s testimony. And he’s doing it without directly interacting with her, browbeating her, or insulting her, which is good.
I hope other people see what I see.
Just keep reminding yourself that it doesn’t matter.
This is a show trial. Not one word will make one difference to those Senators. What could be said to make ol’ Spatacus vote “Aye”?
Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed or not based on the momentary spinelessness or spine-fullness of a few fake R votes in that committee and on the Senate floor. It will be party-line plus or minus the fake Rs. I will be surprised if any Ds (even the most vote-vulnerable among them) vote to confirm.
And the good Judge and his Mrs need to teach their daughters how to pray Psalm 5 for good measure…any of the other imprecatory Psalms will do too.
You are right John, it doesn’t matter what you or I or anyone else thinks of Ford’s and Kavanaugh’s testimony but only how a handful of R senators are going to vote. And maybe 1 or 2 Ds, I think Manchin’s vote at least is up for grabs. WV, once a Dem stronghold, is now a very red state.
As a trial lawyer of 45+ years experience, I have found that the least skilled lawyers are those that don’t develop our most powerful tool as fact finders, the ability to conduct an effective cross exam. There are some very elemental questions that never were posed to the accuser. As Trump would say: sad.
I think Rachel Mitchell’s job — which she did well — was to expose the manipulations of the process by the Democrats. The “jury” she is trying arguing in front of are the wavering Republican members — and maybe some moderate voters.
The Republican and Democratic base voters have already decided.
It was Damned if you do and Damned if you don’t for whom ever asked the questions of MS. Ford. If Mitchell or someone else had gone in guns blazing the optics would have been especially bad for the Republicans. Poor MS. Ford would have broken down and cried and Dems would have been shouting How Dare You How Dare You. I think all Mitchell could do was to point out inconsistencies in MS. Ford’s statements. As other have mentioned Mitchell’s job was to try to get the wavering Republican Senators to move to Kavanaugh.
neo on September 27, 2018 at 3:38 pm at 3:38 pm said:
Chuck:
Right now, though, I think Kavanaugh is doing some damage to Ford’s testimony. And he’s doing it without directly interacting with her, browbeating her, or insulting her, which is good.
I hope other people see what I see.
* * *
Agreed.
I assume her closing argument will be in the committee meeting.
I am now pretty confident he will be confirmed.
Ford is a troubled woman, possibly with false memories.
My take on Mitchell’s approach is that it has been correct. Ford is for reasons unknown a damaged person. But she is also a partisan leftist who decided to enter into this clusterf#~k, so I have no sympathy for any emotional turmoil and mental confusion she suffers. The dnc has abused her and DiFiChi is the leader of Ford’s abuse in this case. The other fake accusations will wither on the vine, if the dems are smart enough to realize this absurd circus of character assassination does not play well in Peoria.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with the confirmation, but I definitely appreciate the Braveheart moment. It needed to be said.
I think the 5 minute rule hurt Mitchell’s ability to finish a line of questioning.
Based on how fragile Mrs. Ford came across, I’m not sure how anything remotely combative would have worked, in terms of the Republican holdouts being persuaded.
I don’t think Kavanaugh could have done a better job, given the circumstances, except when Durbin cornered him about the FBI investigation.
Fortunately, Graham stepped in and deflected Durbin.
Mitchell didn’t accomplish much, except she prevented a few Republican Senators from having the opportunity to look like male chauvinist pigs. That alone is probably sufficient, and a good thing. No one on that committee was convinced one way or the other by today’s hearing. One can only hope that Collins, Murkowski, and Flake will think carefully before voting tomorrow.
we are about to have full rule by proxy
If he is not confirmed, we have full rule by doxy.
Disappointing — the latest from Alan Dershowitz — “Postpone Kavanaugh confirmation until FBI can investigate accusations against him”:
“Maybe we can get closer to the truth, although that is not certain. But right now there are too many unanswered questions to bring the confirmation of Kavanaugh – currently a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – to a vote of the Judiciary Committee as scheduled on Friday, much less to a vote of the full Senate.”
Mr. Dershowitz is right. Prosecutors get very good at direct wxamination; defense lawyers learn to cross, and it took me years to learn effective cross as an experienced trial attorney. On the other hand, I was always surprised at the defense lawyers who couldn’t articulate an admissible direct question.
Dershowitz is right about Mitchell. She as the wrong person to select to do the questioning. The GOP committee members should have hired an attorney who practices employment law and has experience questioning accusers in defense of their clients when they’re accused of sexual harassment or assault (which covers a wide range of possible misdeeds).
It would have been possible for a defense attorney experienced in these kinds of cases to have dismantled Ford’s story but still treating her with kid gloves.
And why did the Senators have to all the way to Arizona to find this prosecutor? That struck me as very odd. It isn’t like D.C. isn’t crawling with employment attorneys familiar with defending clients against these kinds of accusations. If the district was an independent country sexual harassment and assault would be its national sport.
Ann,
I too found that Dershowitz recommendation horrible. He may be a good law expert, but he sure doesn’t understand dirty politics. He wants a postponement till three accusations can be investigated, but he doesn’t seem to understand that Dems will pull out new ones every few days. He doesn’t seem to understand that the Dems of the past are no longer running the party.
expat, you make excellent points. But among other things Dershowitz doesn’t understand is how FBI background investigations work. After all, no one has alleged a federal crime has been committed, so they can’t open a criminal investigation, especially one that’s well over 30 years beyond the statute of limitations. And frankly it would be irresponsible to waste the FBI’s time on a “thorough” investigation into a non-federal crime that can’t possibly result in a prosecution.
So the only thing they could do is interview the claimed victim and get her testimony, but then they already have that both in oral testimony and written. Then they could interview the alleged perpetrator and get his testimony, but the committee has that as well. Then they could interview the alleged witnesses that the professor has identified and get their statements, but the committee has that as well. As Joe Biden so helpfully put it in 1991 when he was presiding over the Clarence Thomas inquisition, if anybody thinks reopening the background investigation would result in anything more than, “She said, he said, they said” they don’t “understand anything about anything.” And, again, the committee already has the , “She said, he said, they said.”
But the Democrats already know that. They just want to grandstand and demagogue until after the November elections. And they think Americans are too stupid to see through their dirty tricks. But I thought at least Dershowitz would see through it.