Pondering A High-Proof Defense

By Amy Wilentz

Michael Deaver's history of drug and alcohol use was short but dramatic: rushed to the hospital with kidney failure the day before Ronald Reagan's second Inaugural celebration in January 1985; hospitalized for alcohol detoxification the following June, just after he resigned as White House deputy chief of staff to become a high-priced lobbyist; sent to an alcohol treatment center in Maryland for a one-month stint in October 1986, after which he became active in Alcoholics Anonymous.

In his forthcoming memoirs, Behind the Scenes (Morrow; $17.95), to be excerpted in next month's issue of LIFE magazine, Deaver, 49, says he was secretly drinking up to a quart of Scotch a day during his last year in the White House. The pressure of the capital, his associates now say, as well as financial and family problems, was getting to the President's high-strung friend.

Deaver's medical problems could become the subject of a legal dispute this week when the former White House assistant goes on trial in U.S. district court on five charges of perjury. Lawyers spent much of last week interviewing prospective jurors about their attitudes toward alcohol, indicating that the defense may attempt to use Deaver's addiction to exonerate him.

Because of his medical condition, his lawyers contend, Deaver could have been telling the truth when he told a congressional subcommittee and then a grand jury that he could not remember details about lobbying efforts that may have violated federal conflict-of-interest laws. Deaver claimed not to recall meetings or telephone conversations with White House and Cabinet officials during which he allegedly pushed for favors for clients such as TWA, Rockwell International, Philip Morris and the governments of Canada, South Korea and Puerto Rico.

Deaver's attorneys will argue that their client, who visited the White House frequently, could not recall those conversations because they were insignificant. His memory was also hazy, the lawyers may argue, because Deaver was in an alcoholic fog both at the time of the meetings and when he testified.

Although Independent Counsel Whitney North Seymour Jr. asked that expert testimony on the alcoholism issue be disallowed, Presiding Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has agreed to hear medical witnesses on Deaver's problems. In other cases, judges have allowed testimony on whether alcohol impaired a defendant's intent to commit a crime. To prove perjury, Seymour must show that Deaver intended to lie under oath.

Legal experts are dubious about the prospects of an alcohol-related defense, though many believe it could be used to win some leniency for Deaver in sentencing. "This defense has been frequently used and has almost never been successful," says Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. "It's a defense of the last resort." Explains Lawyer Michael Kennedy, who cited his client's drug dependency in unsuccessfully appealing for a new murder trial for Schoolmistress Jean Harris: "Juries tend to look at addiction as something for which you must bear the responsibility. Therefore they are disinclined to let people off the hook."

Deaver seems to have made a strong comeback from alcoholism, and is dealing well with the strain of his impending trial. "He is a man at peace with himself," says a friend. "He's in marvelous mental shape, relaxed, pleasant and interested in gardening." Indeed, the day before jury selection began, Deaver was in his garden planting spring bulbs, a gesture that bespeaks some hope for the future.

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington