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" Oscar Goodman knows a little something about crime, especially the kind that&amp;#039;s in the news lately. Take, for example, the Las Vegas Mob Museum he&amp;#039;s busy getting built. Or: Attorney General Eric Holder&amp;#039;s recent announcement of one of the largest classic mafia crackdowns in American history, which resulted in the arrest of nearly 130 reputed mobsters and members of &amp;quot;La Costra Nostra,&amp;quot; involving hundreds of feds, all five major mob families, unions, rats, murder, extortion, and some of best nicknames possibly ever. As the foundation for the next great Scorsese flick gets played out in the news, we asked Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas (since 1999) and former criminal defense attorney whose legal reputation for defending the (so-called) &amp;quot;mob&amp;quot; is legendary \u2014 to the extent that it earned him a cameo playing himself in Casino, anyway \u2014 for his wisdom on what one might need to do on the other side of the courtroom. Because sometimes it&amp;#039;s The People against You. You don&amp;#039;t have the name of any of the fellas who were indicted, do you? I was interested to see if any of my former clients were caught in this web.  The great thing about our country is there are rules of law that apply to both people \u2014 both popular and unpopular \u2014 that, thank God, we have the presumption of innocence and we require our government to follow, to play by the rules.  That&amp;#039;s basically what one does when they represent an unpopular person or unpopular cause: They cause the government to meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. If they can&amp;#039;t do that they&amp;#039;re not entitled to a conviction.  It&amp;#039;s not a crime, being a member of a group. They&amp;#039;re being charged with various crimes, allegedly on behalf of an entity that&amp;#039;s referred to as &amp;quot;La Cosa Nostra&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;the Mafia.&amp;quot;  Basically, you defend those kinds of cases the same way I defended a case for my clients who were charged under like indictments. The same way I represented Jimmy Chagra, charged with killing a federal judge. You must force the government to do its job right. Not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but beyond reasonable doubt.  I always define that to a jury as: they have to be convinced to a moral certainty that the defendant engaged in the activity with which he&amp;#039;s charged.  Just to put a label on somebody saying he&amp;#039;s a member of the mafia, that doesn&amp;#039;t do it. That&amp;#039;s not a crime.  Make sure your client is treated on a level playing field, and no different than anybody else who&amp;#039;s charged with a crime.  I&amp;#039;ll never forget, I had a case down in San Diego and the judge got set up with the prosecutor and the media referring to my client as &amp;quot;reputed mobster&amp;quot; So-and-So. They&amp;#039;re Mr. So-and-So, not &amp;quot;reputed mobster&amp;quot; So-and-So. You have to convince a jury that&amp;#039;s what the system requires.  It&amp;#039;s just an accusation. I did have a &amp;quot;mob&amp;quot; case in Philadelphia where the prosecutor was saying &amp;#039;if you put these nine people away the mob will be through forever in Philadelphia and you&amp;#039;ll be able to sleep at night!&amp;#039; and with that about 15 guys in the back of the room stood up \u2014 each one without a neck \u2014 and walked out of the courtroom. I don&amp;#039;t think anybody was sleeping easy that night, thinking that the mob was going to be eradicated. Anybody who&amp;#039;s not familiar with The Sopranos as a TV show, you don&amp;#039;t want them on your jury, cause they&amp;#039;re an idiot. There is fact, and there&amp;#039;s fiction, and we&amp;#039;re not here to try fiction. We&amp;#039;re here representing human beings with families, with a certain brand of morality who are charged with very specific activity. If the government can&amp;#039;t prove that are you ready to bring back a verdict of not guilty. If they [agree to that], you remind them of that a thousand times during the trial \u2014 and certainly during your closing argument \u2014 and usually you go home with your client. You have agreements of whatever discussions are taking place between various defense attorneys, that they will not be disclosed and you hope that those kind of deals \u2014 and I don&amp;#039;t mean that in a pejorative way \u2014 those kind of agreements are upheld. On the other hand you have to be very careful that it doesn&amp;#039;t look like one lawyer is representing the entire mob and is keeping the other lawyers silent during the case. It&amp;#039;s a delicate balance. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and each defendant is entitled to that presumption of innocence. Where there&amp;#039;s smoke there&amp;#039;s fire? Doesn&amp;#039;t apply in a federal courtroom. [Previously: &amp;quot;What I&amp;#039;ve learned about the mob? That there&amp;#039;s no such thing.&amp;quot;] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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