Blog 11/12/21

At the end of the trial day yesterday, defense counsel Kevin Gough expressed his usual consternation on finding out that Al Sharpton had been sitting in the courtroom in the Ahmaud Arbery trial.

Gough, in typical fashion he has displayed throughout the trial, popped off and tried to make an enormous issue out of nothing.  Gough maintained that the judge should bar Sharpton and other high profile black preachers from the courtroom.  Gough specifically said that the presence of Sharpton was “intimidating.”

“We don’t want any more Black pastors coming in here,” Gough spouted, making a fool out of himself yet again.  Various web sites posted photographs of his co-counsel putting her head in her hands as he spoke.

Gough, not having said enough had to use the phrase “these people” referring to exactly whom we don’t know.

Gough talked about Rev. Jesse Jackson as well and then finished up by saying that “If a bunch of folks came in here dressed like Col. Sanders with white masks sitting in the back…” people would protest. I am not at all sure what Col. Sanders has to do with anything, but that’s Kevin Gough.

It breaks my heart to know that Gough was the Glynn county Public Defender for years.  He is such a disastrously bad lawyer I cannot imagine how many poor people are in prison because of his incompetence.  Every person who went to prison after being defended by this man should have a new trial.  It is just one more instance of total incompetence and corruption by the Glynn County government.

Gough, after other defense attorneys went to the mics to denounce his statement, apologized today just in case he had inadvertently insulted anybody.

And on he went as he has been going for decades.

After a particularly long and inane cross examination of the GBI investigator who took over the Arbery case today, it occurred to me that one of Gough’s strategies was to be so confusing that the witness appears confused.  He then hopes that the witness will look more confused to the jury than he does.  In this particular case, he is hoping that the young black female prosecutor will object to his confusion and therefore look like a bitch.

I just cannot imagine that this man has gotten away with this incompetence for decades.  But, as one of the commentators after today’s performance pointed out, it could be that Gough is a person the jury identifies with. The commentator was pointing out that the GBI agent came off as smooth and professional.  The commentator posited that the jury might well identify with the shambling, stumbling Gough rather than the outsider, the smooth, polished, intelligent GBI agent.  I don’t know. I find it hard to believe that anybody could watch Kevin Gough, who has questioned whether Joe Biden is president in court, and think he is anything but a disaster.

Gough is like a bad actor who loves to act and has no idea that he is bad, really bad.  I have seen hundreds of them.  Now that I think about it, the entire “Gong Show” was based on such people.

Gough depends on making a lot of noise, but rarely has any legitimate legal point, and also seems completely disorganized.  Today, he seemed unable to fix on any one theory of his case.  He just kept throwing out option after option – Bryan was an idiot, Bryan had learning disabilities, Bryan was trapped by the GBI agent into saying things he didn’t mean, Bryan couldn’t remember what happened on the day of the killing and the GBI agent had taken advantage of him in some way, Bryan was only a witness, the GBI didn’t immediately arrest Bryan, throw it against the wall….

It did occur to me, however, that Gough had rather cleverly set up one of his defenses in advance.  When Bryan went to the GBI to be questioned, Gough asked the GBI agent to come out of the room so he (Gough) could explain what a hard time Bryan had following and explaining what happened in narrative form.  Gough essentially told the GBI agent that he had to talk down to Bryan, explain everything to him directly.

So, the GBI goes back in the interrogation room and explains things to Bryan as if he were a child, directly and simply.  And then Gough gets up in court and accuses the GBI agent of putting words in Bryan’s mouth by directly explaining things to him.  Gough set that one up, deliberately, methodically, and ahead of time.

But, I think Gough had not counted on the steely nature of this GBI agent.  Gough started down a path of condemning the GBI agent for setting up a reenactment where the GBI agent drove the truck and asked Bryan to tell him what happened.  Gough had made a point of telling the agent that Bryan was basically slow and he had to break down things to him and that Bryan had difficulty explaining things in a narrative fashion.  Then, when the GBI agent set up the reenactment with himself driving, and Bryan telling him what to do, Gough attacks the agent for not having Bryan drive the truck.

Gough berated the agent saying, you just had to have this reenactment  didn’t you, implying that the agent had forced the poor ignorant Bryan into doing this reenactment.  The agent calmly fired back, you were the one who demanded the reenactment because you said Bryan couldn’t talk through this in a narrative form.  Gough, didn’t skip a beat.  And you took that as a “green light” he fired back.  That’s my favorite quote of the day, perhaps of the week.

“You did this.”

“You told me to do it.”

“And you took that as a green light.”