![\"Chuck](\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/files\/2010\/10\/chuck-ch2-1.jpg\")
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In the tenth day of the Federal corruption trial of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, the evidentary phase ended.\u00a0 In principle, the facts are in. But this trial has shown just how fluid the boundary between fact and interpretation can be – especially in the hands of lawyers. The ambiguity is most pronounced when trying to “prove” motive.<\/p>\n
There were lots of small points disputed.\u00a0 Chuck did or didn’t call somebody, but emailed them instead.\u00a0 As far as I could see there were only three undisputed facts of any importance.<\/p>\n
1. The Oath:<\/strong> <\/em>Assistant US Attorney John T. McNeil showed that page of the registry to several witness who took the stand and asked them to identify Chuck’s signature.\u00a0 I don’t see that there was much question of fact on that point.\u00a0 My interpretation<\/strong> is that attorney McNeil was engaged in a psychological gambit.\u00a0 “This is a solemn oath. To violate it is a serious crime. You much convict!”\u00a0 This emotional logic leaves out one very important step: “Do the facts show that he committed a crime?”<\/p>\n 2. The Hearing:<\/strong> Chuck says that he scheduled the hearing to look at the whole question of liquor licenses in his district. McNeil claims that it was for one and only one license\u00a0 for cooperating witness Ronald Wilburn. This is the single act that is supposed to have been the swag for Wilburn.\u00a0 Chuck’s lawyer Barry Wilson established that the city government’s licensing board is not the final authority in granting liquor licenses.\u00a0 Their decisions must be approved by the state ABCC<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3. Cancellation<\/strong>: A number of politicians asked Chuck to cancel the hearing. There was a home rule petition for more liquor licenses at the Statehouse at the time. McNeil claimed that the cancellation proves that the hearing was only about the one license for Wilburn. Chuck says it was about more licenses for the district which might well include Wilburn.<\/p>\n So while it’s highly questionable whether the tape shows\u00a0 a bribe took place, it’s also highly questionable whether any action was taken that was favorable to Wilburn’s license that is significantly greater than a general interest in promoting commerce in the district.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the tenth day of the Federal corruption trial of Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, the evidentary phase ended.\u00a0 In principle, the facts are in. But this trial has shown just how fluid the boundary between fact and interpretation can be – especially in the hands of lawyers. The ambiguity is most pronounced when trying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}