Toledo, Ohio personal injury attorney Dale Emch on testimony of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Posted by
Anneke KurtApril 04, 2008 5:19 PMTags:
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Reports on Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s testimony in court have been prevalent in recent news. Toledo, Ohio personal injury attorney Dale Emch discusses Kilpatrick’s testimony surrounding the recent scandal involving text messaging and his former chief of staff, in his most recent "Legal Briefs" column in the Living Section of the Toledo Blade. Although Attorney Emch focuses primarily on personal injury cases.
Here's an excerpt from the column:
The scandal swirling around embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the web of lies he appears to have spun hasprompted a lot of curiosity about the perjury charges he faces.
In case you missed it, Mayor Kilpatrick and ChristineBeatty, his former chief of staff, have been slapped with felony charges ofperjury stemming from testimony they gave in a civil trial in August. The gistof the charges is that they lied under oath in the case brought by formerDetroit police officers about whether Kilpatrick and Beatty previously had aromantic relationship and whether they had fired Detroit Deputy Police ChiefGary Brown in 2003.
Anyone who has read the coverage in the Detroit Free Pressknows there’s no doubt that they both lied under oath. The paper broke thestory by uncovering text messages the mayor and Ms. Beatty sent each other thatmake it clear that not only were they sexually involved, but that they haddiscussed and decided to fire Mr. Brown.
In the court of public opinion, these two are cooked.Whether that translates into convictions in a courtroom remains to be seen.I’ve had friends ask how the mayor and Ms. Beatty can possibly avoidconviction, given what the Free Press has exposed. My only response is that itsure looks bad, but you never know whether material that suffices as good,solid proof for newspaper stories will be admissible and persuasive in court.
In Ohio, one commits perjury by knowingly making a falsestatement that is material — meaning that it could affect the outcome of theproceeding. In Michigan, one commits perjury by willfully testifying falsely to“any matter or thing.” So, in Michigan, the false statement doesn’t need to bematerial to the case.
Prosecutors will have to prove that Mayor Kilpatrick andMs. Beatty willfully made false statements at the August trial. At this point,it looks like the best evidence is the text messages that show they were lying.The statements at trial would have to be false, not just misleading.
In order to prove that, prosecutors would have to show thatthe two actually sent the text messages that the Free Press uprooted. If thecase ever goes to trial, I’m guessing that the prosecutors will have more towork with than just the text messages the two sent. I would think by usingpowers unavailable to the journalists who have worked this story they’ll comeup with witnesses that will provide damning evidence.
I don’t have enough room here to recap the disparitybetween the testimony the mayor and Ms. Beatty gave and the text messages hesent, but here’s a small sampling pulled from the Free Press coverage. WhenMayor Kilpatrick and Ms. Beatty were asked if they had a romantic relationshipduring 2001-2003, both said no.
According to the paper, Ms. Beatty rolled her eyes at thequestion while Mayor Kilpatrick went on to give a windy response about how“demoralizing” such questions were to both of them, and how disparaging suchsuggestions were to Ms. Beatty as a woman.
Contrast that testimony with a text message the mayor sentMs. Beatty on Oct. 16, 2002, which read: “I’ve been dreaming all day abouthaving you all to myself for 3 days. Relaxing, laughing, talking, sleeping, andmaking love.”
On Oct. 3, 2002, Mayor Kilpatrick wrote that he was “madlyin love” with Ms. Beatty, to which she responded that she was “madly in love”with him, too. A number of other text messages, some of them too explicit forthe Free Press to print, were exchanged by the two.
They also both testified that they hadn’t fired Mr. Brown.Ms. Beatty, though, wrote a text message on May 15, 2003, to the mayor thatessentially apologized for the mess created by the “decision that we made tofire Gary Brown.” Mayor Kilpatrick responded that “… It had to happen though.I’m all the way with that.”
The conflicts between the testimony and the messages arenumerous.
The case, though, has to be proven beyond a reasonabledoubt. Will jurors be sympathetic to the mayor and refuse to convict him or willthey condemn his actions?
At the very least, the mayor deserves to lose his licenseto practice law and Ms. Beatty, a law student, should never be allowed to sitfor a bar exam. The legal system only works if people are honest when they testify — and there need to be consequences for those who aren’t.
