"THE TRIAL OF THE CENTURY"

The feeling after the trial reminded Sue of a scene from a movie (starring Dennis Quaid) that she saw many years ago. It went something like this:

Dennis Quaid plays this down and out character named Travis where everything he does in life always leads to a bad ending. He tells this story to a friend:

One day he was so frustrated with life that he gets down on his knees and cries out to GOD. "God, why does everything in my life go to shit? Why can't I make anything out of myself? Where did I go wrong? What have I done to deserve your wrath? He then said that GOD answered him in an audible voice and he was shocked to hear GOD speak to him, so he listened very carefully.

He then asked his friend, "Do you want to know what GOD said to me?" Of course, his friend answered "yes, please go on".

He says, Well God spoke to me and said, "Travis, there is just something about you that chaps my ass!" He ended it by saying, after that he knew his place in the world.

Well, that's kind of how the trial went. Sue told me, we just don't seem to have the "charm" it takes to convince anyone that something like what is going on in our Local can be so terribly fucked up!

The chairperson of the trial was Terry Daly from CWA Local 1101. He cut off the defense several times. We argued. At one point, when Nita Moreno was being questioned, he started answering for her. She even commented, "shouldn't I be answering these questions"?

Daly cut Sue off before she even finished reading her opening statement. He interrupted her by saying it sounded like a closing statement. She told him she would also have a closing statement, and sarcastically remarked, "and I just might read this again". He said, "I'll consider it done."

Daly cut Sue off during cross examinations saying her questions had nothing to do with the charges. When Sue tried to explain that she was speaking directly to what the witnesses had just testified to and was trying to show that their testimony was not accurate or conflicted with other records [maybe trying to establish a 'credibility gap'? Or to put it more succinctly... she was trying to prove that they were lying thru their crooked teeth] Not that it would matter to this 'unbiased' trial panel! He (Daly) responded, "It's not about the charge so drop it."

Did Sue use better judgement and shut up? Noooooo, she had to continue on by saying if it directly relates to their testimony then she had the right to question the accuracy of that testimony. That probably went over well with hizzonner! Hmmmm...what would you have done? Keep in mind readers, we are dealing with the prosecutor's witnesses (Mike Minimal and John Natoli) who, would swear to God it was the truth whenever Moreno lied!

Daly's motive seemed to get in, get it over with and get out as early as possible. Maybe he had plans to play golf with the "Tone" (Tony Bixler, Vice-President of District Nine). Not likely because the "Tone" is a '19th Hole' kind of guy and is physically more in touch with a putting (or should I say petting?) green! But, who knows? It was easy to see from the beginning that Daly clearly dominated the rest of the trial panel. The woman from Pittsburgh spoke up ocassionally to agree with Daly but the guy from Virginia was quiet as a 'church mouse'. Somewher during the trial Daly commented that, "He's known Drake for 20 years" As if to say "I know the guy, so quit trying to paint a picture that he's innocent."

One of our witnesses commented to Sue, after the trial, that Daly reminded him of a joke he once heard by Richard Pryor. He said, "the guy never really said much but kept giving me a look like I owed him money". Sue introduced copies of letters produced on Union letterhead versus the memos Mike had distributed, to another one of our witnesses. She asked him which he considered to be "Official Union Business". He (Ross Atkinson) answered, "I don't consider anything "official" if it isn't served by a US Marshall".

Believe me, by this time, it didn't matter what we said. At times it was really hard to maintain a straight face. At other times it was hard not to say, "Are you nuts? Do you honestly believe I think whatever penalty you impose was arrived at through an impartial hearing? In addition to a suspension why don't you take Kirby (the dog I love!) away from me too! That would make just about as much sense for the penalty, as the charges did for this trial, but it would hurt me more"!

"Kirby is the Man"

The Trial started around 10:30 and ended around 2:00PM including time for several breaks. In all honesty, if there are any regrets there were these two: One was a document that could have been important to my defense and a couple of times we drifted off the subject. However, in retrospect, we don't think any of it would have mattered.

Daly even made us give our closing remarks first. Sue told him the procedure called for the prosecutor to go first with the closing remarks and then the defense goes. It even says that in the trial procedures she had in her hand. Not in this trial does the prosecution go first! In this trial, the defense goes first because the chair of the trial panel says the defense goes first! Oh well! Sue went first.

In prosecutor Walsh's closing statement he argued, "That it didn't matter whether Mike had a long record of commendable service to CWA or Unions. It didn't matter that his letters were noble in trying to sign up non union members. The fact is that Mike's experience was all the more reason for knowing he was violating a directive." Basically he argued, "No one is above the law when it comes to membership action (He has seen to many Steven Segal movies)". We damn near expected a line from a Rambo movie (deleting the word "not" from the line) "you are expendable drakester". Of course, you would need the broken English version to get the right effect.

At this point it was all we could do to keep from one of us blurting out, "Yeah right! This is coming from a guy who has his head so far up Bahr's ass he can't tell night from day, to the chairperson of the trial panel who is an officer of a CWA Local that is no stranger to court cases involving them as being oppressive to members rights, but please, do go on." The prosecution revised their original request for a 5 year suspension to 6 months. We suppose that deal was cut before we ever arrived.

In retrospect (I modified it a tad from the original) it was like listening to the assholes in congress impeaching Clinton. Had it happened after the impeachment hearings we probably would have heard some of the lines like some of the republican dimwits were using. Prosecutor Walsh (not an original thinker) would have included "the law is king and the king is not the law" in addition to the one he stole from a Steven Segal film.

Mikey (me) got a little "testy" on the witness stand. He defended his position by saying he did not violate the membership action because it was impossible to stop doing something he wasn't doing! He never performed OPEIU work, but Daly interrupted him. Finally, Mike said, "Look, let's cut through the bullshit and get to the point. This isn't about me doing productive work and violating a membership motion it is about trying to undue an election. You know it, I know it and everyone in the room knows it!" We don't think we scored many points with that comment. When Daly told Mike to stick to answering the questions and save the oratory remarks we were sure of it.

We tried, they lied, and the panel didn't want to hear us prove it. I'm sure they reached a decision right away, (as if they had to ponder something that was predetermined). We didn't stick around but Nita and Hugh did. We told Daly to mail the decision to us.

At least we don't have to hide our little Kirby. As weird as all this is, they could have tried to add him to the penalty imposed! To see the penalty imposed by the "Roos" for committing so heinous an offense there is another door to go thru...