Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories
There was nothing quite so spectacularly—how to put it?—comprehensive as yesterday’s coverage in the Post. But the reporting on Sussman’s last moments upon the stage (in all, a six-hour rebuttal that St. Eve had suggested in open court should have taken only two), the judge’s instructions, and the final passage of the jury toward their deliberations gave rise to another journalistic tsunami this morning. We learned, among other things, that Conrad Black is still bilingual (asked to sum up the case against him, he replied “de la pure fiction”) and that a man named Steven R. Merican, whose business card lists his profession as “evaluating juror opinions and developing courtroom objectives,” was handing out free advice for quotation to the press on the sidewalk outside the Dirksen building. You couldn’t make it up.
The prize for the pithiest summing-up goes to the Sun-Times’ Mary Wisniewski: “It wasn’t Leopold-Loeb. It wasn’t Capone. It wasn’t even the Chicago Seven. [Still] the fraud trial against former media baron Conrad Black has been one of the most closely watched Chicago trials of the last century.”
And now that it’s nearly done, whatever will we do?
Jurors thrust on center stage as deliberations begin [Chicago Tribune]The jury’s out for Black [Chicago Sun-Times]It’s up to the jury now [Toronto Sun]Restless jury could reach quick verdict in trial of Lord Black [Times of London]Conrad Black [National Post]Judge rejects $243,314 claim for half day [Globe and Mail]Black blasts case as ‘pure fiction’ [ROB]Conrad Black case seen on knife edge as jury retires [Guardian]Hold the front page! [Maclean’s]Jury out in Black trial [Toronto Star]
