Jury hears final arguments in 'Housewives' case
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 14 years, 5 months AGO
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jurors considering Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful termination case were urged Wednesday to award her millions of dollars after her attorneys alleged her bosses on "Desperate Housewives" lied and conspired against the actress.
Sheridan's lawyer Mark Baute accused several witnesses of lying when they said the decision to kill Sheridan's character Edie Britt was made four months before the actress accused show creator Marc Cherry of striking her on the set.
Cherry and others testified that the death of Britt had had been decided during the earliest planning stages of the fifth season.
Britt, however, claimed the move came as retaliation for Sheridan's complaints about being hit hard in the head.
"You don't make decisions on killing one of your top five actresses early," Baute said. "It's a game-day decision. You wait."
Cherry testified during the two-week trial that he merely tapped the actress to give her artistic direction.
Adam Levin, lead attorney for Cherry and ABC, said during his closing argument that the actress and her counsel were resorting to desperate theories.
"Desperate is claiming that 10 good citizens of California conspired to get their story straight," Levin said.
He said the theory involved a "complicated story of conspiracy, perjuring witnesses, backdated documents and photographs" that simply wasn't true.
Sheridan looked directly at the jurors as her attorney argued that she should be awarded roughly $6 million for being dumped from the primetime comedy/soap opera.
In his closing argument ABC's lawyer Adam Levin contended that Cherry obtained permission to kill off the character in May, during early planning for the season, and the plan was endorsed by top studio and network officials because it made creative sense.
He urged the jury to reject defense contentions that most of the witnesses they heard during the two-week trial were lying.
"If there is a conspiracy, then these are the Keystone Kops of conspirators," Levin said. "The fact that these witnesses differ on small facts - it lends to their credibility."