It would have been easy in recent days to mistake Courtroom 5D as the site of a Maryland political convention rather than the forum for a public corruption trial.
Prominent Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation have made appearances, along with one of the party’s leading prospects for governor in the next election.
So, too, has the state’s best-known Republican interloper. Former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) testified that during the 25 years he has known Sen. Ulysses Currie, the Prince George’s Democrat has always been forthright and a gentleman.
“Certainly dealing with me, his integrity was very high,” Ehrlich, Maryland’s only Republican governor in a generation, told jurors last week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
The parade of sympathetic politicians has emerged as a key part of Currie’s defense in his lengthy trial on bribery charges. The defense is expected to rest Monday. After more than five weeks of testimony, the case is expected to go to the jury this week.
The 12 men and women who will decide Currie’s fate have appeared riveted by the high-profile character witnesses they recognize from television. But the defense strategy is not without risks for both Currie and the reputations of those who have stepped forward on his behalf.
“I don’t know whether a jury will look at politicians saying nice things about other politicians in a cynical way or a laudatory way,” said Donald F. Norris, chairman of the public policy department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. “I don’t think we have a way to know that.”
Prosecutors allege that under the guise of a consulting arrangement, Currie conspired with two grocery chain executives to do government favors for Shoppers Food Warehouse for more than five years in exchange for $245,000 in payments.
Currie’s defense has acknowledged he made a mistake by failing to disclose the employment on state ethics forms — Currie’s wife testified she filled those out for him — but argue the 74-year-old lawmaker did not commit a crime.
Legal experts say that character witnesses are rarely decisive in criminal trials. But such witnesses can make a defendant seem more likable and tip the scales if jurors are already leaning toward acquittal.
Jacob S. Frenkel, a former federal prosector who is not involved in the Currie case, said that “public officials, in the eyes of the jury, are not necessarily heroes.” But “the more public officials you put on, the better chance that one will resonate with a particular juror.”
If the defense cannot win an outright acquittal, Frenkel said, the next best scenario is to persuade one or more of the jurors not to vote for a conviction.
In Currie’s case, his lawyers have used fellow politicians and other character witnesses — including a university president — as part of a multi-pronged defense.
Other witnesses have made Currie’s involvement on behalf of Shoppers in a series of development deals and other episodes appear less consequential than in the prosecution case.
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