Judge rips defense lawyer during closing arguments

Kim Smith

Thursday, April 26, 2001 | 10:52 a.m.

The straw finally broke Wednesday.

District Judge Joseph Bonaventure had his fill of defense attorney Michael Amador.

Midway through closing arguments in the Margaret Rudin trial Wednesday, Bonaventure let Amador have it. He lectured Amador on the tactics the attorney has been using since he took on the Rudin case.

First there were the false allegations of misconduct against prosecutor Gary Guymon. Then Amador said he was ready to go to trial when he wasn't, Bonaventure said. The attorney gave a three-hour, confusing opening statement, and days later asked for a mistrial.

Then on Wednesday Amador broke a promise. Instead of spending his allotted 30 minutes during closing arguments on Ronald Rudin's trust as he promised, Amador covered just about every aspect of the Margaret Rudin case over 90 minutes.

Normally, only one defense attorney is allowed to give closing arguments in cases in which the death penalty is not being sought. However, Bonaventure had agreed to split the closing arguments in the Rudin case between Amador and Tom Pitaro as long as Amador stayed on one subject for the specified 30 minutes.

Amador didn't follow through on his promise. Worse, he denied making the promise when Bonaventure asked him about it during a break.

Bonaventure stormed off the bench after telling Amador, "I don't even want to bother with you. I don't even want to bother."

Later in the day, however, Bonaventure read back the transcript verifying Amador's promise.

After lecturing Amador on the importance of a lawyer's word, Bonaventure said, "You, Mr. Amador, have lost this court's respect and believability and more importantly, due to your constant misstatements of fact, you have lost all honor before this court."

Outside the courtroom, Amador didn't seem worried.

"There is nothing he can do to me. Nobody sanctions me for things ... when I don't do anything wrong because sanctions require a court order and findings of fact that go to the Supreme Court, and I win outside this courtroom," Amador said.

"I have every confidence that what I've done is represented my client vigorously and selflessly," Amador said. "You should be more concerned about a court behaving like that rather than me simply defending my client."