Sunday, April 2, 2017
MY ONLY BUT CONSIDERABLE ACTING EXPERIENCE WAS LIMITED TO THE COURTROOM AND CHAMBERS
I was a government trial lawyer for most of my career.
Terms search: public defender, Rumpole, team play, rum, etc.
We had a guy in our office, Richard Kiley, rather like Rumpole, older, a little plump, cigarette smoking, New York New Jersey area accent, irreverent, very smart, very funny, very dry, always getting into trouble with the judge, it seemed.
I called him Kiley Baby, a term of endearment. After Doug Roberts ascended to Division Chief, tantamount to taking silk in the British system, and was limited to capital cases, (and later ascended to the Bench), I became the undisputed chief of felony jury trial Not Guilty Land, for almost 5 years...
It was widely admitted within the office, and also in that of the State Attorney, that there was perhaps not a hopeless case which I might not, somehow, miraculously, win. After all, there were examples....
The State Attorney Division Chief, running our court, acknowledged that I fashioned defenses at times out of whole cloth (a high compliment, from the head of the other side), a terrifying prospect to confront for a prosecutor...
Later, while doing jury trials for the government on the civil side, I was the only person in my office who predicted that OJ would be found Not Guilty.
All the others in my office were, justifiably, appalled at my outrageous view and opinion...I had especially watched Johnny Cochran... What an incredible orator, for that venue. (The State's investigation had, of course, also, been bungled. But still.)
I called him Kiley Baby, a term of endearment. After Doug Roberts ascended to Division Chief, tantamount to taking silk in the British system, and was limited to capital cases, (and later ascended to the Bench), I became the undisputed chief of felony jury trial Not Guilty Land, for almost 5 years...
It was widely admitted within the office, and also in that of the State Attorney, that there was perhaps not a hopeless case which I might not, somehow, miraculously, win. After all, there were examples....
The State Attorney Division Chief, running our court, acknowledged that I fashioned defenses at times out of whole cloth (a high compliment, from the head of the other side), a terrifying prospect to confront for a prosecutor...
Later, while doing jury trials for the government on the civil side, I was the only person in my office who predicted that OJ would be found Not Guilty.
All the others in my office were, justifiably, appalled at my outrageous view and opinion...I had especially watched Johnny Cochran... What an incredible orator, for that venue. (The State's investigation had, of course, also, been bungled. But still.)
Rumpole never retired, as he liked to claim others had, and he well might, to the Costa Brava... I, by contrast, already lived in a semi tropical resort town, with all the modern amenities, and so have mostly stayed here, all these years....although the lure of a culturally highly cosmopolitan setting, which I have known intermittently, has been almost constant.
RE ACADEMIC-INDUSTRIAL SIMPLETONEX OLD DARLINGS
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