Sidebar: Video Interview with O'Melveny's Carolyn Kubota
By Susan Beck
August 27, 2009
How might a defense lawyer shape his or her strategy in the wake of the recent prosecutorial misconduct rulings in high-profile cases? That's one of the topics that the Litigation Daily's Andrew Longstreth discusses with O'Melveny & Myers partner Carolyn Kubota in our most recent Sidebar video interview.Kubota represented defendant Jack Wolter in the W.R. Grace & Company criminal trial in Montana, where the judge found that prosecutors had engaged in an "inexcusable dereliction of duty" for withholding emails between a government witness and an Environmental Protection Agency official. Although the judge declined to dismiss the case, a jury acquitted the defendants of charges that the company exposed residents of Libby, Montana, to asbestos-contaminated vermiculite, and then covered up their actions.
(For an old-fashion written Q&A that we did in May with Kirkland & Ellis's David Bernick, who represented Grace, click here.)
Kubota also talks about tactical mistakes that the government made, and describes how they shaped the story to tell the jury.
