Searching for Perricones

The new tactic in public corruption defense is to start by going after the press and hope their sources lead back to the US Attorney's office. Irvin Mayfield's lawyer is taking a crack at it now.

Kelly declined to address the specific allegations against his client outside the courthouse, but he laced into the U.S. Attorney's Office and WWL-TV reporter David Hammer, who has been investigating Mayfield for years.

Kelly claimed he had evidence that the U.S. Attorney's Office leaked information from the grand jury proceedings in the case to Hammer, and that prosecutors had admitted doing so. Kelly said he had filed a motion seeking to dismiss the indictment due to the alleged grand jury leaks. He repeatedly described the alleged leaks as a "miscarriage of justice."

"The case begins with a cloud over it," he said.

And, hey, as we've seen, sometimes it works! So far it's allowed Fred Heebe and the Danziger 7 to walk.  Maybe you can decide where the "miscarriage of justice" figures in the process, though. I'm not sure it's what Kelly thinks.