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Practice Points: Immunized Witnesses: Lessons From the Trial of Mayor Marion S. Barry — Part II: Closing Argument and Interested/Immunized Witnesses
By Jack King, edited by Elizabeth Kelley
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Practice Points columns.
“I know the government is going to come back and say I stood up and told you that the government made deals with the devil. If they weren’t full grown devils they were at least little Lucifers or small Satans, because these were people that had their own problems and at any expense, at any cost they were trying to help themselves.”
Defense lawyer R. Kenneth Mundy, closing argument, United States v. Marion S. Barry, D.D.C., No. 90-68, transcript at 5665.2
Never underestimate the power of a good closing argument. Many people remember the two-hour video of former D.C. Mayor Marion S. Barry in a tricked-out hotel room telling former model Rasheeda Moore that he wanted her more than drugs while performing some unconvincing fumbling with a crack pipe provided by the FBI. Barry finally did take a hit and just then the agents burst through a fake wall and seized the mayor and his pipe.
The jury did not convict him on the possession charge arising from the sting. Barry’s defense lawyer, the la
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