Television
One of the most respected criminal attorneys in the United States, Albert Krieger offers a particularly interesting example of how to adjust a potentially damaging visual appearance and manner to the exigencies of the visual media. During the 1980s, he was a frequent presence on television as his client, one John Gotti, was tried and re-tried until finally convicted and sent to prison.
Krieger is squat-shouldered, bald, and craggy-faced. He looks like the kind of lawyer a murderer might hire. “It was something I thought about all the time,” says Krieger.
Moreover, Krieger is a zealous advocate. He has strong opinions and expresses them strongly. When we joked that he was scarier on TV than his infamous client, Krieger related that in the early 1970s he had done a training video for an opening session of the National College of Criminal Defense. He was painstaking in his efforts to observe proper decorum and maintain professional gentility as he demonstrated the fine points of cross-examination.
When he saw the video for the first time, he was shocked by his own ferocity. “If this is what I am like when I’m trying to be gentle, what must I look like when I’m not! I lost a full night’s sleep fretting over it.”
Krieger’s solution was a simple one: to use the English language well and earn the respect of reporters for the substance of his remarks. “No ‘dees’ and ‘dems,’ no street talk, just [substantive] legal sound bites,” says Krieger. “There was nothing more I could do. With a careful use of language, I tried to moderate the [impression] I made.”
Is that enough to impress a TV audience bound up wholly in the visuals? Probably not. But at least by impressing the reporters, Krieger avoided the trap that another one of Gotti’s attorneys, Bruce Cutler, fell into when he was characterized by the media, not as a respectable criminal lawyer, but as a “legal mouthpiece.”
There’s no doubt the respect Krieger earned from the TV reporters carried over into their coverage and tempered the unsettling visual impact. Throughout the Gotti trials, you never heard a bad word about him.
Stop the Presses
