Subject:  Fieger: Case botched by legal team |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 09/ 5/08 1:56pm
Fieger: Case botched by legal team
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
September 5, 2008
Detroit-area criminal lawyers on Thursday faulted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's high-powered lawyers for waiting too long to negotiate a plea deal after Kilpatrick was charged with perjury.
"He's gotten terrible legal representation," Southfield criminal lawyer Geoffrey Fieger said, adding that if Kilpatrick's lawyers had persuaded him to plead guilty soon after Kilpatrick was charged, he likely would not have to serve four months in jail or pay $1 million in restitution.
"You can't run a criminal defense by committee," Fieger said of Kilpatrick's lawyers, including Dan Webb, a former U.S. Attorney in Chicago, and James Thomas, a high-profile Detroit criminal lawyer.
Jim Parkman, a prominent Alabama criminal lawyer, was terminated last month. He said later he wouldn't let Kilpatrick plead guilty to a felony.
"I'm sure they billed him up the wazoo," Fieger said.
He and other criminal lawyers said there seemed to be no overriding legal strategy and no one in charge of the defense.
But for the late addition of Detroit-area criminal lawyers Gerald Evelyn, Todd Flood and Juan Mateo, Kilpatrick might have gone to trial with the same or even worse result, the lawyers said.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told reporters Thursday there were no serious plea negotiations until two weeks ago, after the new lawyers showed up.
She declined to say whether Kilpatrick dragged things out or whether he could have gotten a better deal months ago.
"All I'm going to say is that this has been the deal pretty much all along," Worthy said.
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