More on the Kevin Spacey Defense Gambit

I wrote yesterday how the Spacey defense team, led by attorney Alan Jackson, filed what initially appeared to be a rather unimpressive motion to preserve evidence. But, I soon realized that the reason the motion was filed was more about putting the defense theory on record: making their argument in formal court documents which then filtered to the press. Not only that, the arguments were made without having to give any statements, much less any sworn testimony, and it has already served to rebut the charges and spread doubt about the allegations, which already appears to have landed an impact with some of the year-round Nantucket residents that will constitute the potential jury pool.

The screencapture on the left is from the front page of CNN.com, which shows that the motion made pretty big news, and it stayed on the front page much of the next day. It also got a headline on The Drudge Report that indicated that Spacey claims the victim “lied about his age” and was flirting, which linked to the story on the NY Daily News. That’s some effective lawyering. The ongoing challenge for the defense team will to be to discourage the management team from releasing videos that fail to further the defense narrative the defense is building.