Anna Nicole Smith sobbed loudly as she sat on the witness stand in a Texas courtroom and expressed her undying love for her deceased husband, J. Howard Marshall, tearfully clutching a photograph of the dead oil tycoon to her famously ample alabaster bosom.
The late stripper and Playboy centerfold had married the billionaire in 1994 when he was 89 years old and she was 26, and Marshall's death 14 months later set off a full-scale war for his riches. Houston attorney Rusty Hardin, representing Marshall's son Pierce, wasn't buying Smith's proclamations of love.
"Mrs. Marshall, have you been taking new acting lessons?" Hardin asked that winter day in 2001.
"Screw you, Rusty," Smith shot back.
During closing arguments, in response to Smith's declaration that she had been the light of Marshall's life, Hardin played Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" on a boom box. The jury later ruled that Smith should not get even a dime of Marshall's money - and then serenaded Hardin with the sappy 1977 ballad.
Scenes like that one helped establish Hardin, who will lead Roger Clemens' defense team when the former Yankee pitcher goes on trial on six perjury-related counts on Wednesday in Washington, as one of the Lone Star State's top trial lawyers. But Clemens, a lock for Cooperstown before he was identified as a steroid user in the Mitchell Report, won't be the only man at the defense table fighting for his legacy. Thanks to a series of legal missteps and public relations blunders in the months following the release of the steroid report, Hardin's reputation has also taken a major-league beating. [...]
"The history of this case shows that Roger Clemens' lawyer has not served him well," says Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane. "A lawyer cannot allow a client to do anything that is to the client's detriment. To allow a client to drive off a cliff is not something a lawyer should ethically do. Allowing him to appear before Congress was a reckless thing to do." [...]
"Roger Clemens' attorney," Keane says, "has shown himself to be an enabler of Clemens' suicidal behavior."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/iteam/2011/07/02/2011-07-02_rusty_hardin_once_put_playboy_model_anna_nicole_smith_on_spot_now_he_tries_to_fr.html
