During their opening arguments Tuesday, prosecutors accused U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) of “putting his power up for sale” in exchange for gold bars, cash and a car. For the defense, Menendez’s attorneys called the accusations “dead wrong.”
Now with the federal corruption trial underway, how much value do these opening statements carry with the jury? NJ Spotlight News spoke with former federal prosecutor Brian Whisler about the impact of opening statements and other early strategies in a criminal trial like this.
“From a pure legal standpoint, opening arguments are not evidence, as a judge will instruct the jury at the conclusion of a trial,” he said. “However, as you can imagine, everything kind of informs a juror’s perception, whether or not it comes from a lawyer or witness.”
What may be more significant, according to Whisler, are the pretrial decisions federal Judge Sidney Stein issued in the case. For example, Stein rejected the defense’s request to have a psychiatrist testify and help explain family “intergenerational trauma,” which the senator’s lawyers will say led him to hoard cash in his home.
“I think it’s fairly significant because the design of that element of the defense was to help explain, from an expert standpoint, why this particular defendant would be keeping that much cash at home along with gold,” Whisler. “And it was a fairly sophisticated argument from a psychological standpoint explaining intergenerational trauma.”
