Prosecutor duds win critical vote

Yeah, yeah, Jim Brannon’s legal challenge to overthrow his five-vote loss to incumbent Mike Kennedy in the 2009 Coeur d’Alene municipal elections had its moments. Like when Lani Chamness appeared on the witness stand in her Salvation Army uniform to answer questions in Team Brannon’s attempt to steal her vote simply because she’d cast it in the wrong precinct. Of more interest during the tedious questioning was wardrobe. That’s right. Huckleberries wanted to know “who” the principals were wearing. And planted a fashionista in the courtroom to critique their garb. John Cafferty of the county prosecutor’s office stole the show. Hands down. Early in the week, he lapped the Red Carpet field by wearing a French jacket with two pockets on one side and one on the other. Then, he performed a victory lap during closing arguments for Hucks’ version of Joan Rivers with another dazzling display. My fashionista reporter gushed that Cafferty was “… the only man in this trial who could legitimately appear in Esquire.” Sounds like Cafferty also might be the only man in North Idaho who could grace those fashionable pages.

Silly wabbits

The Frowny Faces who support Brannon’s attempt to steal the 2009 election from Kennedy dismissed as silly the fashion report from Huckleberries Online. This, even though head Brannon cheerleader Mary Souza got high marks for her attire, except for the “Mom Pants” she wore to closing arguments. “Mom Pants” are those high-water pants with five pockets that were mocked in a famous “Saturday Night Live” skit. My fashion reporter said Mary was the best garbed, best coiffed member of Team Brannon. Mary wasn’t impressed, however. On her OpenCDA.com blog, she said: “Here we are with an important court case that reflects the honesty and integrity of our whole system of voting, and some people (who eat lots of huckleberries apparently …) focus on who is wearing what to the trial? That’s silly.” No sillier than spending 10 months, beaucoup dollars and six days in court to realize a net gain of one vote in a five-vote election loss.

Huckleberries

Four days into the Brannon trial, Kennedy Facebooked: “I’m tempted to again misrepresent a quote from Shakespeare: ‘First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ But I won’t, since I’ve grown fond of my group of lawyers who are all good, smart people” … At one point, Team Brannon attorney Starr Kelso insisted that City Attorney Mike Gridley whispered to him where he could shove his paperwork (where the sun doesn’t shine). Judge Charles Hosack apparently didn’t hear the remark. And Gridley denied making such a statement. By 126-58, however, my Merry Hucksters believe Gridley did make the statement … BTW, Cyndi Steele claims that her husband, Edgar, was framed by the FBI to silence his politically incorrect views in that murder-for-hire case. But 75 percent of my blog followers disagree … Kevin Taylor, my ol’ S-R buddy who now toils for the Inlander, wonders why he wasn’t allowed to take his digital recorder into the courtroom for the Brannon trial where “seemingly a third of the gallery was cruising (Huckleberries Online) on laptops or texting from their phones. Something’s not fair” … In case you were wondering, Dan English announced in my blog comment section that a new Brannon-Kennedy election couldn’t be held in conjunction with the general election in November because (drumroll, please) absentee ballots have already been sent out.

Parting shot

At one point, attorney Kelso tried to introduce an old Huckleberries Online post as evidence that Monica Paquin in Canada had voted illegally for Mike Kennedy. Kelso couldn’t coax Paquin to fly from Quebec to say that in person. So he offered the post from early this year in which Paquin told Huckleberries just that. Which Judge Hosack dismissed as hearsay. Then, with Larry Spencer and a third of the audience tuned into Hucks Online coverage on their iPhones, Hosack admitted that he didn’t even know what a blog was. Which means he didn’t see all the Red Carpet speculation re: what he was wearing under his black robe. And why I’m still free to report this.