To Avoid Jury Trial, Chevron Now Wants to Remove Donziger and Lawyer John Keker from RICO Case Oil Giant Clearly Scared of Jury Trial That Could Create Additional Liability, Plaintiffs Say http://amazonwatch.org/news/2011/0421-in-major-legal-move-chevron-now-wants-to-remove-lawyers-from-rico-case

To avoid a jury trial, Chevron has filed papers before a U.S. federal court seeking to remove American lawyer Steven Donziger and his highly-respected counsel John Keker out of the first phase of a racketeering case in New York that the oil giant filed in February to try to escape paying an $18 billion judgment in Ecuador for causing massive pollution to the Amazon rainforest. Chevron is clearly "petrified" of a jury trial against Keker, who is based in San Francisco near the oil giant's headquarters and is widely considered one of America's leading trial lawyers, said Karen Hinton, the spokesperson for the Ecuadorian plaintiffs suing the oil giant.

On behalf of Donziger, Keker has locked horns with New York judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over Chevron's racketeering case in federal court, accusing him of trampling Donziger's due process rights and asking that he reassign the case to another judge. "With its latest court filing, Chevron is admitting that it does not think its lawyers can win a trial before a jury of impartial American citizens who would likely review evidence of the company's reckless and potentially criminal misconduct in Ecuador," said Hinton. "This is an extraordinary capitulation prompted by Chevron's desire to avoid having to prove its spurious allegations before an impartial jury," she added