4.2.12 WC: 191694 I am convinced—and I think most observers were convinced—that if Tyson had gotten a second trial with all the new evidence before the jury, he would have quickly been acquitted. But this was Indiana. They had a trophy in Tyson. And they had a trial judge determined to prevent a new trial that would have embarrassed her and freed Tyson. The conviction was eventually affirmed on a two to two tie vote by the Indiana Supreme Court, with the chief justice disqualifying himself from participation in the decision on a phony pretext. He sent his wife to speak to me during a Yale Law School event. She said, “your New York style won’t work in Indiana.” I asked who she was, and when she identified herself as the wife of the chief justice, I quickly moved away saying, “We can’t talk.” He used this contrived encounter as an excuse to disqualify himself. I believe that the real reason he got out of the case was because his own previous decisions would have required him to vote for reversal, and if he did, the public would be reminded that he himself had been accused of sexual impropriety with a law clerk by a fellow judge. In my half century of practicing law throughout the world, I have never encountered a more thoroughly corrupt legal system than I did in 1992 in Indiana and a less fair trial and appeal than those accorded Mike Tyson. If hard cases make bad law, then the Tyson case proves that unpopular celebrity defendants often receive bad justice. If Mike Tyson had not been a celebrity, with a reputation for toughness, and if he had a zealous lawyer experienced in rape cases and a fair judge, he never would have been convicted of a rape he didn’t commit. If he had been convicted in a different state, or at a different time, his conviction would have been reversed. The deck was stacked against Tyson and he paid a heavy price—loss of his career, and several years of hard prison time—for a consensual one night stand with a young woman who apparently regretted