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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Judge Expands Number of Witnesses DOJ Can Call in Federal Racketeering Suit Against Tobacco Industry [11/02-2]
Excerpts from: US can call more witnesses to tobacco trial stand
Reuters [11/01/04]
A federal judge has expanded the number of witnesses the U.S. government will be allowed to call for live testimony in its $280 billion racketeering case against cigarette makers.
District Judge Gladys Kessler, in a ruling handed down late Friday, granted a Justice Department request to call an additional 10 people -- rather than submitting statements they've made during depositions or past tobacco lawsuits.
The decision will bring to 61 the number of witnesses the government will call to the stand during the 12 weeks it has to present its case.
The ruling also requires the government to cut 11 of the remaining 121 witnesses whose testimony was to be introduced through prior depositions and testimony in past lawsuits.
Last month Kessler ordered the government to cut 30 people from its list of 131 prior-testimony witnesses after complaining that she was being inundating with material from previous cases.
But Kessler reconsidered after Justice Department attorneys said such drastic cutbacks in testimony would "severely prejudice" their case, and that they would move to call the witnesses live if previous testimony was kept out of trial.
"The magnitude of this change, especially ordered mid-trial, has negatively impacted the Government's ability to adequately present its case and has disrupted the Government's trial strategy and preparations," Kessler wrote in her Friday ruling.
Government lawyers are in their seventh week of presenting their case.
The government charges cigarette makers lied and tried to confuse the public about the dangers of smoking as part of a 50-year industry conspiracy.
The tobacco companies deny they conspired to promote smoking and say the government has no grounds to pursue them after they drastically changed marketing practices as part of a 1998 settlement with state attorneys general.
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