Cold Puts a Muffler on Hedgecock’s Mouthpiece

Attorney Michael Pancer is Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s major mouthpiece in his trial, but the jury still is out on whether Pancer will be able to speak loud enough to be heard in his closing arguments.

Approaching perhaps the most important trial summation speech in his legal career, Pancer has contracted a severe chest cold that has left him with a sore throat and hoarse voice--no laughing, or, in this case, coughing matter when one is preparing for a three-hour-plus address.

Even Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. has expressed concern about Pancer’s condition and tried to provide some medical advice on Tuesday.

Before Tuesday’s court session began, Todd told Pancer that he knows someone who had been successfully treated for just such discomforts and promised to try to obtain the doctor’s name so that Pancer could make an appointment.

Later, Todd briefly interrupted the session to accept a telephone call from his acquaintance. After speaking on the phone for a few minutes, Todd hung up and gave Pancer the verdict.

“Well, Mr. Pancer, that doctor died,” Todd said, prompting loud laughter in the courtroom.

Pancer later made his own medical appointment, and spent the afternoon sucking on throat lozenges. The state of his voice, Pancer told Todd, remains “a day-to-day thing.”