Women Criminal Defense Attorneys: Cynthia Giacchetti Representing Criminal Defense Attorney Charged with Perjury
There is nothing that hits closer to home than representing a fellow member of the bar. When that client is a criminal lawyer who is under attack by the Government for conduct relating to doing his or her job, well, that is simply one of the toughest challenges this field has to offer. Cynthia Giacchetti has developed a reputation as a top-notch criminal defense attorney in Chicago, and she is currently representing a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago who is in the midst of a fight for his life. There is no doubt that Giacchetti is up for the challenge. She was a former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois in the 1980s and has been defending the criminally accused ever since leaving to enter private practice. It is obvious after reading about the case that, for Giacchetti and her client, this will be a tough and epic battle.
Last year, criminal defense attorney Beau Brindley was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice for encouraging witnesses to lie in a federal trial. This January a superseding indictment was filed expanding the case and accusing him of encouraging witnesses to lie in a total of five cases and making a false statement in a filing in a sixth case. His law partner was also added to the superseding indictment. In the fall of last year, Marina Collazo, who was named in the original indictment with Brindley, agreed to cooperate against him. Collazo is a former wife of the co-defendant charged in the drug conspiracy trial where it is alleged that Brindley coached both his client and Collozo to lie on the stand.
What is most concerning about a case where a lawyer is charged for conduct directly related to doing his job, is that by the nature of the charge the Government is imposing themselves into the attorney-client relationship and the work product during that relationship. It is impossible to “Monday morning quarterback” every conversation with a client or witness and establish who said what and what it meant. A witness can interpret meaning from a lawyer’s statement that was not intended and vice versa. It is ironic that an individual whom the Government considered a liar when they once testified for the defense is miraculously a truth teller when they are providing testimony that supports the Government’s theory.
It appears that the indictment encompasses the lawyer’s conduct of coaching his client. Since when is coaching a client to prepare for testimony a criminal offense? Doesn’t the Government coach witnesses? I’m sure most of us have witnessed this first hand as it relates to cooperating witnesses at one time or another. Irrespective of whether or not Mr. Brindley is the shining example of a criminal defense attorney, indictments of this nature are an attack on the defense bar and the role of the criminal defense attorney in our system. Indictments of this nature feed an ever-growing paranoia that the Government’s wrath against our clients might be turned and aimed at us. Indictments of this nature permeate the attorney-client relationship and turn every conversation with a client or prospective witness into a tiptoed dance that requires a lawyer to be more concerned about self-protecting then defending their clients.
Why couldn’t the Government’s concerns about this lawyer have been brought in the form of a bar complaint? What about it rose to being a criminal offense? And if the Government were truly concerned over an ever-growing problem of attorneys suborning perjury then why aren’t we seeing civil lawyers or even government lawyers who have faced sanctions for similar conduct being indicted? I think the answers are obvious. The bottom line is that when criminal defense attorneys are forced to prioritize cautiously self-protecting over what is in the best interest of the client then the attorney-client relationship is fatally injured and the defense function is forever jeopardized. And ultimately our clients suffer. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is the ultimate goal.