It is to laugh.

Scrushy defense: ex-HealthSouth executives out to save themselves

Finally, Team Scrushy might be onto something!

It's obviously in opposition to his own defense strategy, which seems geared toward making sure he is found guilty.

It is telling that a few days back when Bernie Ebbers was sent up the river, the combined legal prowess of the team poo-poohed the idea that a similar outcome could possibly befall Dickie Bird, because they observed that po' Bern was tried up in Noo Yawk, away from kith and kin down home in Miss'ippi. Our boy is being tried here, amongst all his friends who are well aware of his wonderful philanthropy and good deeds and church-goingness and high-holiness and such like. Who could convict such a man!? And so what if the money might be a bit tainted, right?

The defense also seems to be fascinated with the idea that the FIFTEEN other conspirators in this scheme made money from it. They've been pounding hard to show that they put the ill-gotten cash in the bank without any ill-feelings. But it's probably not the best ploy, given that the defendant also benefitted richly from the fraud, and by several orders of magnitude over the minor players in the game.

Finally, the lead defense mouthpiece has been scrupulous in banging the shoe of spurious suposition on the table, never failing to attempt to bring up the most unlikely hypothetical situations, and speaking of them as if they're fact. Oh, and there's nothing in writing telling anyone to do anything illegal, so Dick's in the clear.

It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out. Juries are odd things, but for what it's worth, there have been 15 straight convictions associated with this case, and all the jurors come from around here, and were just as aware of all the cash doled out by company to local organizations.

I suppose we'll see what happens.
posted by Terry at 1:41:00 PM