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| Summation to the Jury |
The closing arguments by the two attorneys to the jury, in the Dead Sea Scrolls trial of Raphael Golb, was an interesting study in contrasts. One of Golb's two lawyers, summing up to the jury in Raphael's defense, relied on emotion to appeal to the jury: he was expansive and inclusive, warm, and often used generous terms in describing others.
He also placed Raphael Golb's part within the larger historical context: a vicious battle of scholars in the Dead Sea Scrolls world, that had been going on for decades; and often with pseudonyms, much the same as Raphael often used.
This lawyer's approach presented the warm-blooded, human facts of the case: Raphael Golb's testimony of his frustration with the way the Scrolls community had been smearing and excluding his father and colleagues; and with the way his father's plagiarism charge against Schiffman, 15 years ago, had never been addressed.
The fact that there is always the possibility that accusations of Schiffman's plagiarism- or anyone's plagiarism- might someday prove be true, raises the question, is it against the law to call someone a plagiarist, were he to turn out to be a plagiarist? Raphael Golb's lawyers framed this as a First Amendment "whistle-blower" case.
In Golb's lawyer's summation, he told the jury that Raphael's goals- to expose academic misconduct-was of the most important issues; and he put into evidence two pages plus footnotes, from Raphael's father's book from 15 years ago, that claimed to demonstrate Schiffman's plagiarism. After the conviction, Breitbart complained to the press that Raphael's father's plagiarism accusation turned out to be the single only piece of evidence the jury did not ask to see.
I say his lawyer was expansive, inclusive, contextual and emotional. It was an "appeal" in every sense of the word, an appeal, one might say, for mercy. Whereas the prosecuting attorney, in his closing arguments, relied more on statistics to get his point across. It was exclusive, that is, excluded the human aspects having to do with context, history, or intent. He excluded most facets of this complex case except that Raphael originally lied in his interrogation, which "proved" that he also lied on the stand.
Please remember, the very first thing Raphael Golb said on the stand, was tell his defense attorney that he did indeed write all the emails and blogs; and that he had initially lied about that in the interrogation at his arrest.
Raphael Golb on the stand testified how, during that nearly two-hour interrogation, he was in shock and afraid: having just been woken up in his own bed by six armed policemen, handcuffed, led to the wagon, put in a 'cage' with another prisoner: all on two hours sleep (verified by the time on his computer); Raphael also testified that he was told if he agreed to be interrogated by the ADA (now prosecution attorney), he "could go home."
I have given that description before, and will do so again, because it is lopsided to speak of the long interrogation of Raphael Golb at his arrest, without also explaining the circumstances in which it was done.
The complexity of this case, for the prosecuting attorney, appeared to be in his multicolor charts showing the web of IP addresses Raphael used, painstakingly tied in with neatly organized and labeled lists of emails Raphael sent and accounts he sent them from.
For the prosecution it was mostly about this small-print list of precisely what Raphael did, day by day, hour by hour, to the exclusion of how he did it or why he did it, or the historical context of decades of standard ways in which, the savage scholarly debate had been going on before Raphael entered it.
I'm not saying the two lawyers were not articulate; I'm not saying that Raphael's lawyer did not use logic and evidence; I'm not saying that the prosecution was not sincere in his argument for the verdict. But overall, to me, where the defense looked at the heart and the big picture, the prosecution took more of a magnifying glass and stripped things down to the numbers.
The judge told Raphael's lawyer to give his summation on Tuesday; then the prosecution was to wait until Thursday to address the jury. By that time, no doubt the jury no longer felt the warmth of the defense's appeal of two days before.
The jury, as I understand the trial, may have been swayed by some simplicity in the language of the charges, which the judge read to them; [see my blog post "What Exactly Was Raphael Golb Convicted of?"]; and perhaps swayed by the simplicity of relying on lists and charts.
The District Attorney's office sought up to 4 years for Raphael Golb, upstate in Reikers Island State Penitentiary. And in fact after the sentencing, rather than let Raphael wait for the Appeals office to open in 2 hours, it was ruled that Raphael should be shackled immediately and sent upstate on the very next bus to Rikers Island State Penitentiary. I wonder what horrendous crimes they thought Raphael Golb might have committed in those 2 hours.
I am an English teacher, not an expert on any of this; my opinions and explanations are my personal interpretations of what I witnessed in the courtroom, and articles and blogs I have read about the case.
