Those Conspiracy Theories: Risk & Reward

Last night on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," the prosecution was trying to nail a medical doctor.  He denied his patients standard treatment for HIV and Aids.  Why?  As he told the court, he was convinced that the medical establishment and BigPharma cooked up that category of illness and drugs as part of a profit-making conspiracy.  What the prosecution feared was that the jury would "love the conspiracy theory" and let the alleged miscreant off the hook.  Fortunately, for the law and order crowd, the MD wound up taking a plea deal.

But do juries really love conspiracy theories?  In my experience, putting one forward in court entails enough risk to make the potential reward not seem worth it.  First of all, it's a build proposition. That involves complexity and time.  If juries don't perceive all that well invested, they're likely to turn against the party presenting it. 

A prime example of that were the multiple conspiracy theories presented by the plaintiff in the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance trial.  They included:

• Trade group Lead Industries Association was attempting to sell more and more lead paint even though it and its member companies knew the substance was hazardous to health.  The problem was there was no evidence and the judge threw out this particular theory.

• Cute ads and puppets associated with lead paint were used to appeal to children.  The problem was that children are not the typical purchasers of this product and it's rare for kids to nag their parents into "more lead paint, mom."

• Material from secondary sources presented by two historians allegedly proving that the lead paint companies knew of the danger of lead.  When I interviewed the jurors they didn't perceive this as "evidence" and the historians as objective researchers.

• Corporations as profit-making organizations can be assumed to be up to no good.  The problem with that was that the jurors were primarily working class folks who were provided jobs by those evil corporations.

On the other hand, in the Mary Winkler [Preacher's Wife] murder trial, defense attorney Steve Farese applied conspiracy theory well.  Forces such as a damaged childhood, buttoned-up persona demanded of a minister's wife, and bizarre sexual coercion [famous platform heels and wig] conspired to render the defendant the victim of impulse.  A master of performance art, Farese wove the pieces of the theory together.

Another winning application was the government's case about plaintiff attorney Dickie Scruggs and the rest of All the king's men. The defendants took a deal.

Somehow, conspiracy theory seems guaranteed to be more successful in the media - e.g. law & order TV shows, films by Oliver Stone, books by Naomi Klein - than in the court room.  Jurors, both defense and plaintiff attorneys agree, take their responsibility seriously.  That can make them suspicious of grand schemes against the plaintiff or defendant.  

Comments

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