U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik had heard enough.
"Let's go!" the 85-year-old jurist said, his voice transcending the filter of white noise meant to keep the discussion private.
The attorneys and prosecutors standing near his bench had prattled on for six minutes with a roomful of jurors waiting.
Judge Kosik repeated the instruction twice more before the attorneys and prosecutors returned to their seats, invoking it as a mantra of the courtroom philosophy he has held for four decades: don't waste time.
Judge Kosik, appointed to the federal bench in 1986, pleaded for urgency and expedience throughout the first day of former Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.'s trial on a 39-count corruption indictment.
Attorney Chris Powell of Scranton described Judge Kosik as "stern" and his attitude toward attorneys as "no nonsense."
"If they're fumbling around, he'll get irritated," Mr. Powell said.
Judge Kosik will sometimes tap his bench with a pen, signaling to a long-winded attorney he or she has gone on for too long, Mr. Powell said.
That impatience with attorneys is, the lawyer said, a byproduct of Judge Kosik's allegiance to jurors.
"He's very aware of the jury sitting there, twiddling their thumbs," Mr. Powell said. "He doesn't want to waste anyone's time."
Judge Kosik's impatience flared about an hour into the proceeding Monday morning, during an exchange with defense attorney Al Flora Jr. over a question about the potential jurors' exposure to media coverage of the case.
Mr. Flora, prompted by Mr. Ciavarella, asked Judge Kosik to poll members of the jury pool on whether they had read or heard any media coverage of the case since they sent in their jury questionnaires in December.
Judge Kosik agreed, but tweaked the question slightly, asking the potential jurors only if they had read about the case and if doing so had swayed their opinion of Mr. Ciavarella.
Mr. Flora stood, objecting to the change.
"What's your problem?" the judge asked.
Judge Kosik later chided attorneys and prosecutors for meticulously reviewing the jury questionnaires submitted by jurors who had been added to the final pool of 36 potential jurors.
"I thought you were going to wear the writing off those questionnaires," he told the attorneys after dismissing the jury for the day. "You went through the damn things often enough."
No comments:
Post a Comment