Broadside: Bulger Proven Responsible for 11 of 19 Murders

(NECN) - Monday, Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was convicted of 11 of 19 murders, along with other crimes such as racketeering.

As a defense attorney himself, Randy Chapman says Bulger's attorneys J.W. Carney and Hank Brennan had their hands full with this case from the beginning.

"I mean, there were hundreds and thousands of pages of documents, several witnesses against him, I think they did the best they could under the circumstances," he says.

Legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Dan Small says Carney's assertion of using an immunity defense in appeals won't work.

"The idea that they have immunity from murders past, present and future is nonsense. It always was nonsense, and the idea of Whitey Bulger as a white knight, as somehow exposing government corruption, is nonsense as well, but Jay Carney is a good lawyer and he's going with whatever cards he's dealt," he says.

Legal analyst and former assistant district attorney Phil Tracy says Bulger's defense was successful in embarrassing the government.

"And I think they successfully made the jury or asked the jury to scrutinize the actions of the federal government. Now, I thought Carmen Ortiz did a good job later this afternoon when she said, look, we understood that things were wrong back in those days, and we understood that we had some egg on our face so to speak, but we ... had to get these ugly witnesses to testify and you know we had to make deals that we didn't want to make, but that's the only way that we could get to the top. This was a prosecution of somebody who was the CEO of a crime family," he says.