Defense attorney facing heat for comments about opposing lawyer
TRENTON >> Jack Furlong has called the city mayor “a ass,” forfiringawell-respectedmunicipal judge.
Hesuggestedanow-retired prosecutor crossed the boundaries of fair play when a pretrial hearing last year veered into a fishing expedition. And Furlong remarked sarcastically that the First Amendment must have been repealed when a judge shut out the public from the courtroom for a sentencing.
Those comments paled, though, to a suggestion the loquacious Trenton defense attorney made this week during closing arguments in a murder conspiracy trial.
Furlong suggested a Mercer County public defender, Caroline Turner, allowed her client, Robert Bartley, to commit perjury so he could get a deal to testify against his cousin, Raheem Currie, who is being tried for the shooting deathofJamesAustin,theson of retired Trenton cop Luddie Austin.
The allegations struck a nerve in the local legal community. A prosecutor, in his closing argument before the jury began deliberations Thursday, swept aside Furlong’s suggestion and stood up for Turner, who said the allegations hit “below the belt.”
Now a New York law professor told he believes Furlong went overboard.
“There’s no basis to make the insinuation,” said Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor who specializes in lawyer ethics. Furlong told
in a phone interview If you have a disability and need assistance with the application process, please contact the office at Thursday that he would not apologize for the perceived dig at Turner and accused the prosecutor, James Scott, of taking his comment out of context.
“Hell no,” he said. “Absolutely not. … That’s a conversationdefenseattorneyshaveall the time. You can take that to the bank. … I don’t think she suborned perjury. I think she did what she had to do. We all say stuff that rankles our opponents. We shouldn’t be sensitive about it. Or we should look for different work.”
Lawyers and witnesses have immunity inside a courtroom that makes it almost impossible for them to be sued for statements they make, true or untrue, Gershman said. But he said Furlong’s comment approached an ethical line.
“It does attack a lawyer’s ethics and competence,” he said. “And it makes every lawyer an accomplice in the alleged perjury.”
Bartley was represented by Turner, a well-known public defender in Mercer County.
Bartley struck a deal with prosecutors to testify against his cousin, Currie, in exchange for a 25-year prison term.
In his original statement to police in February 2013, Bartley admitted shooting James Austin to death but told authorities his cousin had nothing to do with the murder.
Then, a day before pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter in September 2014, Bartley provided authorities a second statement in which he contended his cousin asked him during a phone conversation if he had his gun.
Furlong attacked the differences in Bartley’s statements in his closing argument Wednesday.
Then, turning his sights on Turner, he suggested he knew how the conversation went between Bartley and the public defender.
“I’m not allowed to talk about what would have taken place between him and his lawyer,” Furlong said, according to the recording obtained by The Trentonian. “That’s covered by attorney-client privilege, and frankly, I don’t know because his lawyer would be in violation of the rules if she told me what they talked about. I could make an educated guess.”
Furlong, channeling the public defender, went on: “‘You’re looking at life. You’re looking at the rest of your life, and these are the people who got you into the mix. All you have to do is say something about them knowing about the gun, and I can get you a deal.’ And she did. And he did.”
In rebuffing Furlong’s suggestion during his closing, Scott said: “A lawyer is supporting perjury? That’s what the lawyer’s gonna do? Ask her client to lie? Please.”
Gershman, the legal expert, said it was unusual for a defense attorney to attack another defense attorney.
In this case, he said, it was different since Turner worked with prosecutors to help her client get his cooperation deal, and ultimately, a reduction on his sentence. He said there is a fine line between zealous advocacy and reckless crusading.
“I think people will engage in any type of argument to get their clients off, and that conduct here does support that perception,” he said. Furlong saw it differently. “There’s not a lot of space between lying under oath to get the deal and lying under oath to keep the deal,” he said. “I don’t think I took a veiled shot at a defense attorney. That’s Jim Scott’s interpretation. He misrepresented my argument.”