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Deep Throat's Lawyer - Not a Criminal Defense Lawyer

By Jeralyn, Section Other Politics
Posted on Thu Jun 02, 2005 at 10:17:39 AM EST
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The Wall St. Journal ( free online here) profiles John O'Connor, lawyer for Mark Felt and the author of the Vanity Fair piece. He's described as "defense lawyer." (Also see Romanesko.) Just to be clear, he is not a criminal defense lawyer. He's a civil litigator who defends corporations against individuals who sue them.

Mr. O'Connor, for his part, is known as an ambitious defense lawyer, a fierce cross-examiner and a charming raconteur. .... As a director at the law firm of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, Mr. O'Connor has focused on corporate-liability defense cases. He has represented not just Reynolds against cancer patients but won favorable verdicts for a brakes maker in an auto accident case, and an insurance company sued by a paraplegic.

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    Deep Throat's Lawyer - Not a Criminal Defense Lawyer | 1 comment (1 topical)
    Re: Deep Throat's Lawyer - Not a Criminal Defense (none / 0) (#1)
    by Peter G on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:37 PM EST
    Let us not forget, while celebrating the public-spirited Mr. D.T. Felt, that not 3 years after helping "Woodstein" expose the misdeeds of the Nixon White House, Felt himself was convicted of participating in a criminal conspiracy with the self-same L. Patrick Gray (whom he is now said to have so distrusted) to violate the civil rights of innocent friends and family of fugitive left-wing revolutionaries, such as the Weather Underground, by surreptitious break-in searches of their homes (a lot like the sneak-and-peek searches now authorized under the PATRIOT Act). Gray escaped conviction by pioneering what is now known as the "Gray-mail" defense: threatening to reveal national security secrets (dirty tricks against the Castro regime that had been authorized by high US government officials, IIRC) as part of his defense if prosecuted. Felt, although convicted, was later pardoned by Pres. Reagan. A bit ironic that one of the impeachable offenses disclosed by the Watergate investigation was Nixon's authorization of just such sneak searches, directed against Daniel Ellsberg (and his psychiatrist), the whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers. I conclude from this that the great public service Felt performed in Watergate did not arise out of principle.

    Deep Throat's Lawyer - Not a Criminal Defense Lawyer | 1 comment (1 topical)