Mayor LaToya Cantrell's attorneys are preparing to defend her against 18 federal felony counts, including 14 counts of wire fraud. What would it take for Cantrell to beat the feds and be acquitted by a jury.
As one attorney who helped a high-profile politician achieve acquittal, it will come down to the jury pool.
"There's no voir dire," Lewis Unglesby said, referring to the the process by which attorneys question potential jurors to learn about their biases.
According to Unglesby, federal judges are not required to allow attorneys to voir dire the jurors. However, the judge may allow voir dire to proceed if she so chooses.
"What the judge won't ask them and what a lawyer would ask them is: Does the fact that my client is sitting here cause in your mind that she did something wrong?" Unglesby said.
Unglesby says voir dire helped him when he defended former Governor Edwin Edwards to an acquittal on federal charges in 1986. He notes that if the judge presiding over Cantrell's case refuses to allow the attorneys to question jurors, the prosecution would have an early advantage.
"There's already a strong animus towards the individual towards some people," Unglesby said. "You're going to have people from various parishes who are the furthest thing in the world politically from the mayor and that are, truthfully, inclined to believe what the government tells them in a situation like that."
Unglesby adds that the federal agents who investigated Cantrell are professional witnesses who will be tough for Cantrell's attorney's to crack.
"The FBI agents who gets on the stand has gone to witness school, basically," Unglesby said. "He's been practiced and practiced and practiced. So he's going to be--historically, usually--more difficult to cross-examine than normal witnesses."
Unglesby further stated that the "elastic" nature of the charges against Cantrell could hurt her case.
"It's not nearly as specific in the elements of the crime as something like murder or burglary," Unglesby said. "It's, to a degree, in the eye of the beholder. The attitude of the courthouse makes a big difference in what your chances are and the attitude of the people that are judging you toward the public official."
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