KEY POINTS:
It's the media's role to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, Justice Rosalie Abella, the first woman to be appointed to Canada's Supreme Court, told her audience in Chicago last week at the Australian Bar Association Conference, acknowledging H L Mencken as her source. Justice Abella was
just one of the luminaries to whom I listened.
How refreshing it was to be stimulated by debate and opinions rarely aired in New Zealand. One of America's leading prosecutors, Patrick Fitzgerald, US attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, spoke. Fitzgerald's name will be familiar to New Zealand politicos - he most recently brought an indictment for five counts of false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, US Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
Fitzgerald's too brief talk revealed a personal side of his handling of high-profile drug-trafficking cases: his 1993 assistance in the prosecution of Mafia figure John Gotti; in 1994, his prosecution of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahamn and 11 others charged with the World Trade Centre bombing; and in 1996, his involvement in investigating Osama Bin Laden.
The mind boggled at the personal security Fitzgerald must daily tolerate, yet he spoke with understatement, and injected wry humour to his recollections of working across a small courtroom from some of the world's most dangerous men.
Fitzgerald was preceded by Judge Richard Posner, for years a writer I have admired, but, sadly, disappointing on this day. Politically, a classical liberal, Posner's subject, "Not a suicide pact: the constitution in a time of national emergency", promised strong messages on balancing national security with the rights and liberty of the individual. Instead, to me and several other attendees, Posner was weak, with no historical context (eg, terrorist attacks against Americans are not always from the outside - Timothy McVeigh for instance).
I wanted to ask him, how a classical liberal can even entertain the very idea of secret trials? And if, as Posner claims, the philosophy of the criminal justice system is not to eliminate crime, why does the US take a zero tolerance attitude to terrorism, justifying the trampling of individual liberty? But maybe, in the end, most people have feet of clay.
Then, there was Robert Clifford, famous US personal injury attorney and show pony extraordinaire, who adores running his cases in the media (whom he described as "all wacky"). Describing modus operandi which would eclipse those of New Zealand's Gary Gottlieb or Michael Reed QC, Clifford cheerfully advised the assembled barristers to issue press releases, cultivate media and garner public sympathy for their clients if they wished to win.
A panel discussion which should be compulsory viewing for New Zealand's attorney general Dr Michael Cullen, titled "Regulation and independence of the profession", featured New Zealand's Colin Carruthers, QC. Despite being married to this man, I had no idea the recently passed Lawyers and Conveyancers Act carries alarming changes for those who hold dear the separation of the executive from the legal profession. (So much for pillow talk.) Carruthers' dispassionate outline of implications for the New Zealand public, when the legal profession's independence is vital for those wishing to challenge the Government, caused ripples of alarm among English, Scottish and American lawyers alike.
At the gala dinner we were privileged to sit with Major Michael Dan Mori, who for three years worked tirelessly on behalf of Australian David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay.
However, it was not all work in this architecturally outstanding city, where luxury apartments overlooking the river are half the price of Auckland's. Great restaurants, terrific Californian wines, vast parks punctuated with breathtaking sculptures make this a favourite American city.
But a singularly shameful moment: we had told a sommelier his wine list was erroneous to describe a Martinborough wine as coming from Marlborough, but next day we realised that he may be right. Invited to a Chicago friend's apartment for lunch, she'd deliberately bought what she thought was Martinborough wine (knowing we have a vineyard there).
She opened this Te Tera sauvignon blanc 2006 from Martinborough Vineyard which, the label clearly stated, was "wine of Marlborough" and "selected from a small number of premium vineyard sites".
Confused? I think the truth should be told. Is this fair labelling? I think I know how the 120 legal brains gathered in Chicago's Drake Hotel would answer that.