Although Hachette CEO David Young was ostensibly the star of the seventh day of the Apple price fixing trial, it was Apple lawyer Orin Snyder that really grabbed the court’s attention at the end of the day. Beyond his relentless questioning of a government expert witness about what he called factors other than Apple’s MFN that may have forced Amazon to accept agency pricing, Snyder essentially went ballistic when he learned that Random House COO Madeleine McIntosh would not be required to appear in court.

Government attorneys have also decided not to call Random House CEO Markus Dohle to the witness stand, but that didn’t seem to bother Snyder, though he mentioned it. With his crisp fitted dark suits, rimless eyeglasses and bullet-head haircut, Snyder has offered an interesting combination of energetic geniality and controlled intellectual aggression. When he’s not bearing down on witnesses he seems like the happiest guy in the courtroom, backslapping and bantering with colleagues—even his objections in open court seem to be delivered with a jab, a wink and a smile. But about 5 pm on Wednesday as the day’s session was about to close, U.S. attorney Lawrence Buterman told Judge Cote the government had no questions for McIntosh—a former Amazon executive herself and friend of Amazon’s Laura “Jedi Mind Tricks” Porco, who testified earlier—and would not call her to the stand. Snyder nearly jumped out of his seat to protest.
Indeed he gave a vehement and impassioned plea to Judge Cote about the absolute necessity of MacIntosh taking the stand so the Judge can “assess her credibility.” Snyder gave at least two extensive pleas to Cote to allow MacIntosh to appear in court, emphatically claiming her absence would be “unfair to Apple,” and that Apple will be “severely disadvantaged” if she does not appear in court. Cote, who reminded Snyder that she established strict rules around witnesses over a year ago—apparently Snyder did not include her on his own witness list and now it’s too late to add her—was attentive but said it was unlikely and “unfair” to everyone if she changed the rules in the middle of the game. In deference to Snyder’s impassioned plea she said she would rule on the request Thursday, but also said she didn’t want to “give you false hope.”