MS trial to recess over March

MS on Trial Judge Jackson has being doing his best to keep to The Register's timetable for the Microsoft trial. As we predicted, strenuous efforts are being made to complete the Microsoft witnesses' evidence this week. Judge Jackson has firmed up his commitment to hear a criminal case (at the moment, the Microsoft case is a civil case), and the DOJ's David Boies has long been committed to helping Unisys from 15 March in Philadelphia. Judges have considerable discretion as to when the court sits, and it is significant that Judge Jackson's Order yesterday said that the trial would resume after the criminal case and Boies' case have finished. This is now expected to be 12 April, a week later than we predicted, so the court will probably be in recess for six weeks. The court does not normally sit on Fridays, but to accommodate the timetable agreed privately with counsel, it sat last Friday and will do so this Friday if necessary. Yesterday, there was also a shorter lunch break, and from Wednesday, the court will sit earlier if it is running behind the private schedule. Boies' abrupt termination of his cross-examination of Daniel Rosen was a dramatic way of stressing the lack of credibility that Rosen had as a witness. Boies said outside the court that he had stopped his cross examination because he had demonstrated what he needed so far as Rosen's credibility was concerned. Rosen had "contradicted his own deposition, the depositions of other witnesses, his own documents, the documents of other people". There was a very interesting exchange at the end of the morning session at a bench conference to review timing issues: Boies: Your honour, I neither want to cut the witness off from an explanation that is necessary to explain what he is answering, nor do I want to cut the witness off if the court finds what the witness is saying useful. However, what the witness does is, with respect to question after question- The court: I know exactly what he is doing, Mr Boies. You have to make your judgment about it. The inference was clear: Rosen had little or no credibility with the judge. Michael Lacovara was unprepared for a redirect examination after Boies suddenly ended at 3:30pm, but since the court was rising at 4pm for the judge to undertake some other business, his redirect examination will be today. ® Complete Register trial coverage