Question from an English man. Is the right to appeal automatic? Could the judge stop the appeal process before it gets going? If the evidence is so strong does it make a difference?
Question from an English man. Is the right to appeal automatic? Could the judge stop the appeal process before it gets going? If the evidence is so strong does it make a difference?
Here is a quick explainer on criminal appeals in New York state from a law firm that practices in that area. IANAL so I can't vouch for its accuracy.
Question from an English man. Is the right to appeal automatic? Could the judge stop the appeal process before it gets going? If the evidence is so strong does it make a difference?
Here is a quick explainer on criminal appeals in New York state from a law firm that practices in that area. IANAL so I can't vouch for its accuracy.
All this may not be dispositive as to the question of what precisely Bragg must prove. But it’s certainly dispositive of what Bragg does not have to prove; to wit, New York case law seems clear and consistent that he does not have to prove the object crime itself, only the intent to commit an object crime
IANAL* but I've been following this for a while. This is my understanding of the situation based on carefully reading expert analysis.
Trump is charged with falsifying business records. I don't think the prosecution will have any real difficulty proving that beyond a reasonable doubt. The way his business operated and the fact that his signature is on the paperwork.
That is a misdemeanour.
Trump has been charged with a felony because the statute allows that it rises to the level of a felony if the same act (falsifying records) is done in the pursuit of another crime. The other crime(s) in this case is illegal contributions to a campaign and/or election interference and/or tax fraud.
The point of the article is what does the prosecution need to prove to get the felony conviction they are after?
Well,
1) obviously they need to prove that the records were falsified.
2) the article argues that case law means they need to prove only intent to commit one or other of the associated crimes. Which is part of the reason for the limited charging.
I think the jury instructions will be very informative here when the judge gives them. The point being the usual concept that judges decide law and juries decide fact.
To me, the fact of the records being falsified is a slam-dunk. The majority of the trial is all about the rest - whether Trump did commit or intended to commit the other offenses. If you cut through all the melodrama and the noise, the Prosecution has entirely made this case. The question for me is whether the Defense has managed to muddy the waters enough to make the jury uncertain enough to not convict.
Which is why I think the jury instructions will matter.
AFZ
*I have a naive belief that law should be accessible and understandable to lay people. It follows therefore that lawyers should be able to explain things so non-lawyers can follow. In the same way as scientists should explain their findings to a wider audience.
The jury made two requests as part of their deliberation, today. The first request was to review David Pecker's testimony concerning how he caught and killed Karen McDougal's story.
The other request was to rehear the judge's instruction to the jury.
By one reporter's estimate the total time spent on deliberations yesterday and today was about ten hours. On the other hand the forty-three counts are fairly close to identical. If you decide that Trump's payoff of Michael Cohen in February 2017 [ is / is not ] a crime you'll probably reach the same conclusion about Trump's payoff of Michael Cohen in March 2017.
Phil Incelmo
Fun fact: When someone is found guilty on exactly 34 counts of *anything*, an entirely new trial is set that can overturn the original verdict. I encourage all concerned patriots to Google “Donald Trump Rule 34” to learn more.
For those who are not aware of the meme, Googling "[ anything ] Rule 34" is extremely NSFW.
Phil Incelmo
Fun fact: When someone is found guilty on exactly 34 counts of *anything*, an entirely new trial is set that can overturn the original verdict. I encourage all concerned patriots to Google “Donald Trump Rule 34” to learn more.
For those who are not aware of the meme, Googling "[ anything ] Rule 34" is extremely NSFW.
We were talking of this at coffee this morning (it's heading to 10 am Friday here). General surprise that an ex-President would be convicted, no surprise that Trump was. In our conservative suburb of Sydney, Trump was a figure of fun and also of concern - how could such a fool reach that position, that sort of thing.
I can't believe it! I am happy and yet... still worried that he's going to be the P.O.T.U.S. again.
If he is...
I can almost assure you that, while I have no way of knowing what will happen, I am certain that it won't be anything resembling a normal presidency, even if Trump remains out and about.
The dude is going to be a felon, convicted by the state of New York, serving the highest office of a government and military headquartered in Washington DC, a federal district. The jurisdictional brawls alone are going to be wild.
Apparently, the Telegraph's style book indicates that Donald Trump, post-conviction, cannot be granted the honorific "Mr."
But apart from all that...
If I were advising Trump, I'd suggest that he pull a George And Lurleen, and get Ivanka nominated as the Republican candidate, with the understanding that, if elected, she would formulate policy largely on his counsel. That might somewhat spare him the challenges of trying to govern directly as a convicted criminal.
Proves nobody is above the law. Considering how he trashed the judge throughout the trail and knowing he will show no remorse, what do you think would be an appropriate sentence?
God, don’t wish that on America ( or Ivanka; like Lurleen she could die in office)
I actually don't think it's be much worse than direct administration by Donald Trump. And Ivanka would provide some welcome variation to the ongoing series of trainwrecks.
Proves nobody is above the law. Considering how he trashed the judge throughout the trail and knowing he will show no remorse, what do you think would be an appropriate sentence?
Proves?
The former president will appeal until he gets what he wants, and then crow that justice was finally done and that the entire sham proved the need for a real law and order president to replace the insane liberal judges with honest judges, who are above the influence of politics.
Just caught Jennifer Ewing on Nicky Campbell's show on the BBC (UK Radio). I didn't know who she is but she's from Republicans Abroad.
Stunningly dishonest and disingenuous throughout. Trying to make out that it's all a political prosecution when even she (inadvertently) admitted that he did exactly what he's accused of - if you listen carefully to what she said.
The most simple example of her dishonesty is this: She launched into a whole polemic about how it doesn't matter because Biden is so awful and that Americans don't care about this, they care about how the American economy is dire etc. etc. In this diatribe, she said that people know they're paying $8 for a batch of eggs. So I looked it up. Eggs are cheaper this year than last and $3.
This is where we are. The whole context of the debate is not between competing arguments and perspectives, it's about facts vs lies. We knew that anyway, of course.
What's most interesting to me, is that one of the jurors in their pre-selection questionnaire, indicated that prior to the trial, their only source of news was Truth Social. In the course of the trial, this one of the twelve listened to the evidence and found it sufficient to believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald J Trump is guilty.
It's probably worth remembering that this is the weakest of the four cases against Trump.
So, that leads me to two inevitable conclusions:
1. If Trump's other cases go to a jury, he will be convicted.
2. Politically, the issue is one of media and information. If people see the facts, Trump cannot win. I don't mean with the MAGAs, they're gonna vote for him anyway, but they are only a minority. It's all about the independents and turnout.
Curb your enthusiasm people. The news is that websites for the Trump campaign have crashed because of the number of people trying to donate to his campaign. What will it take for these numpties to see the orange monster for what he is?
That's quite a level of certainty! Assuming those trials even occur. And that "all things being equal" really are.
If they reach juries. I am confident that juries will convict if they get the chance.
I am not confident that either federal case or the Georgia case will reach juries.
Let me explain my reasoning here.
The New York case was a tricky one. They had very compelling evidence that Trump had falsified the records. That was easy. Making the case for a felony because it was in furtherance of another crime was harder. Not because I don't think the evidence was there but because the defence could throw mud and try to create enough doubt to hang a jury or get an acquittal. They failed to do so.
In both federal cases, and the Georgia case the evidence is much more straight forward. The jury selection process in NY was robust enough that even someone who previous only got their news from Truth Social was able to weigh the evidence and come to this verdict.
Hence, my argument that if Trump faces more juries, he will be convicted.
The federal cases are the ones most likely to fail. Not because they are weak cases, they really are not. The risk is Judge Cannon in Florida and the Supreme Court are aiding Trump with significant delays. If Trump wins in November, he can probably stop the cases. I say probably because in theory, he shouldn't be able to stop an independent prosecutor, but I think he probably would be able to.
Georgia is another matter, but Trump's legal manoeuvering thus far has been very effective at delaying things and with this Supreme Court, he can probably force a stay in Georgia's procedures whilst in office.
If those three cases and 40-odd felony charges fail, it will be because the cases aren't heard, not because he is tried and acquitted.*
Curb your enthusiasm people. The news is that websites for the Trump campaign have crashed because of the number of people trying to donate to his campaign. What will it take for these numpties to see the orange monster for what he is?
Not unexpected. MAGA will never listen. They are not a majority. The election will be won and lost on independents and turnout. Two things matter here: 1) Getting out the truth of who Trump is and what he plans to do and 2) Getting out the truth of Biden's record. This is the fight. I don't think it's won by any means, but I do think it winnable. I heard an interesting survey recently which reminded me of a parallel in the UK in the noughties.** When asked, people said they thought the US economy was doing poorly (not supported by the indicative data). When asked how they were doing, they said they were better off than three years ago. Dealing with this disconnect is the key for the Democrats.
AFZ
*With the usual caveat that you cannot predict what a jury will do. You can't. But the set of facts and evidence in each case is really strong.
**NHS satisfaction surveys often had this same contradiction: People thought the NHS was not doing very well but when asked about their own recent experience of healthcare, they thought it was really good. Narrative matters.
What's most interesting to me, is that one of the jurors in their pre-selection questionnaire, indicated that prior to the trial, their only source of news was Truth Social. In the course of the trial, this one of the twelve listened to the evidence and found it sufficient to believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald J Trump is guilty.
There was a lot of chatter about that guy, with the pre-verdict concern being that he'd be pro-Trump and hang the jury. But I thought it was unlikely that someone with the full Truth Social worldview woulda survived jury-selection, and my guess would be he's an apolitical who just happened to stumble upon that as a news source, and reads the articles on the news feed(*) without really buying into the promoted ideology.
(*) I've never been to Truth Social, but I'm assuming that they would link to a lot of non-partisan sources, and one could just use the site to track the mainstream media.
I refuse to sign up to Truth Social because I am not giving them either revenue or my details. It is quite restrictive as to what you can see if you do not sign up. I often drop in to see what Trump is posting as it's helpful to know.
My best understanding is that it does not really link to non-partisan sources. I accept I could be wrong about that.
However, for our purposes here, it shows that the jury selection process and/or this juror moving beyond what they previously knew was sufficient. Which is my point, that with the usual caveats about juries, the evidence in the other cases is very clear cut.
If we play the game of why would a jury not convict? There are essentially three reasons:
1. The defendant is innocent
2. The defendant is guilty but the case has not been made beyond a reasonable doubt
3. The jury refuses to convict despite the evidence - for reasons of personal bias
I have phrased it deliberately this way. In a truly philosophical sense, we do not know the truth but we use juries to find fact. There are defendants who are genuinely innocent and juries see this. There are defendants who did do what they are accused of but the case is not strong enough and the system should acquit them. That's the difference between 1 and 2 and how it should work. Number 3 in my list is where the system is failing.
The Secret Barrister tells a story of a man accused of sexually abusing his daughters and how he found defending him when he was a junior barrister. This is in his first book. For those that do not know, he is a practising criminal barrister in the UK. The US system(s) is/are not the same as England and Wales' but are analogous for our purposes here. The view of SB is that this man had done what he was accused of but the not guilty verdict was correct in that it reflected that the Crown had not proven it beyond reasonable doubt. In the UK, juries remain constrained and cannot report their deliberations. In most of the US after a verdict, the juries are free to tell their story. So we can never know in this case whether the jury thought he was guilty but could not reach the criminal proof threshold or whether they thought he was wrongfully accused.
All of this waffle is just to explain what I mean about the system. I can point to lots of links if people want to details of the various cases. I have followed this closely. Again, my point remains that I believe if the other cases meet a jury then Trump will be convicted. His only way to avoid further convictions is to avoid the juries.
One of the legal experts I've been reading makes the point that the best advice from a legal point of view that Trump's lawyers can give him is to plead out. His chances of success at trial are very slim. Unless there's a juror who acts in line with number 3 above. This case showed us that the jury selection process was robust enough to avoid a spoiler among the jury.
Of course for political and personal reasons, Trump will never plead out. Hence his options are to avoid trial or if it gets that far, to adopt a defence of throw as much shit as possible and hope to confuse the jury. Again, NY shows this strategy will most likely fail.
Ultimately Trump's problem is that he is guilty and they have the goods on him. He was hoping to do what he's done his whole life and avoid accountability and showing that the rules don't apply to him. He failed.
In the other cases, so far, he has been partially successful in that the legal manoeuvres so far have provided some protection. But the success is, in my view dependent on avoiding juries. If he goes to trial, he loses. That's my argument.
Ultimately Trump's problem is that he is guilty and they have the goods on him. He was hoping to do what he's done his whole life and avoid accountability and showing that the rules don't apply to him. He failed.
Switching from the question of legal jeopardy to political jeopardy, I think this is why a conviction will be politically damaging to Trump. A big part of his appeal is that the rules don't apply to him, and by implication his followers/supporters will enjoy a similar, but lesser, degree of impunity. That's damaging to the kind of appeals he's been making. So is the fact that he's now clearly a loser. He lost.
Won't it be the case that he'll just keep lodging appeals until he gets to the Supreme Court, the members of which are all in his pocket and will presumably repay their lifetime appointments by letting him off?
Won't it be the case that he'll just keep lodging appeals until he gets to the Supreme Court, the members of which are all in his pocket and will presumably repay their lifetime appointments by letting him off?
As a conviction in state court, the U.S. Supreme Court shouldn't get involved unless there is some plausible violation of the federal Constitution or statutes involved. That said, the due process clause is highly elastic and I've long ago given up on predicting what SCOTUS will do.
The defence team didn't dare to put him on the stand. Jurors notice these thins, even though they're not supposed to.
As I said above, if Trump really insisted on taking the stand, his lawyers couldn’t stop him. They could only try to talk him out of it. Given his pattern of blaming others, I’m sure that he’s blaming them for telling him he shouldn’t testify. He thinks he can talk his way out of anything.
Won't it be the case that he'll just keep lodging appeals until he gets to the Supreme Court, the members of which are all in his pocket and will presumably repay their lifetime appointments by letting him off?
As a conviction in state court, the U.S. Supreme Court shouldn't get involved unless there is some plausible violation of the federal Constitution or statutes involved. That said, the due process clause is highly elastic and I've long ago given up on predicting what SCOTUS will do.
Yep. This is a state court proceeding involving violation of state law, so the train should stop at the New York Court of Appeals, absent violation of federal rights. And normally—with the caveat you’ve noted about the current SCOTUS—this means application of a right that hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet, not just a difference of opinion on something that’s firmly established.
And just to add, for SCOTUS to overturn the verdict, there’d have to be a plausible argument not just that his rights under federal law (which almost always means under the US Constitution) were violated, but also that but for the violation of his rights under federal law, the jury would have reached a different verdict, or that the violation was so egregious he couldn’t have received a fair trial.
So while, for example, I can see a plausible argument that the gag order violated his free speech rights, I don’t see a plausible argument that but for the gag order, he would have been acquitted or that the gag order deprived him of a fair trial.
Proves nobody is above the law. Considering how he trashed the judge throughout the trail and knowing he will show no remorse, what do you think would be an appropriate sentence?
Proves?
The former president will appeal until he gets what he wants, and then crow that justice was finally done and that the entire sham proved the need for a real law and order president to replace the insane liberal judges with honest judges, who are above the influence of politics.
Since this was a New York state trial he will have to appeal through the state courts. I do not think the SCOTUS will get involved since this is dealing with a state law.
As I understand it, the sentence for each of the 34 counts is anywhere from probation to four years in a state prison. It is likely that the sentences will run concurrently. If he ends up on probation, he will be on a short leash and could easily find himself behind bars.
Of course, he will appeal, and the appeal process will probably not be over until early in 2025.
Will this affect the election results? We shall see.
The cult followers will not be impressed. Trump is a master at using words like rigged, corrupt, conflicted to label people and things. So his loyalists don’t need to listen to anyone else.
The US had better hope that sufficient marginal voters have enough sense to reject the cult nonsense. Otherwise, God forbid, there might well be 4 more years of this narcissist megalomaniac and his hypnotic powers over the naive.
Nothing to do but pray. Still, it’s a comfort to have the justice system work right in such a public case, and this may make the next three cases work a bit more smoothly, as they will no longer be “the first” to find him guilty (and what sensible person doubts that he is?).
I do hope the sentencing is something that will produce the maximum inconvenience for him and the minimum political or fundraising capital. That will take a great deal of wisdom to sort out.
Comments
Here is a quick explainer on criminal appeals in New York state from a law firm that practices in that area. IANAL so I can't vouch for its accuracy.
Thanks for this.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-must-prosecutors-prove-in-trump-s-ny-trial
IANAL* but I've been following this for a while. This is my understanding of the situation based on carefully reading expert analysis.
Trump is charged with falsifying business records. I don't think the prosecution will have any real difficulty proving that beyond a reasonable doubt. The way his business operated and the fact that his signature is on the paperwork.
That is a misdemeanour.
Trump has been charged with a felony because the statute allows that it rises to the level of a felony if the same act (falsifying records) is done in the pursuit of another crime. The other crime(s) in this case is illegal contributions to a campaign and/or election interference and/or tax fraud.
The point of the article is what does the prosecution need to prove to get the felony conviction they are after?
Well,
1) obviously they need to prove that the records were falsified.
2) the article argues that case law means they need to prove only intent to commit one or other of the associated crimes. Which is part of the reason for the limited charging.
I think the jury instructions will be very informative here when the judge gives them. The point being the usual concept that judges decide law and juries decide fact.
To me, the fact of the records being falsified is a slam-dunk. The majority of the trial is all about the rest - whether Trump did commit or intended to commit the other offenses. If you cut through all the melodrama and the noise, the Prosecution has entirely made this case. The question for me is whether the Defense has managed to muddy the waters enough to make the jury uncertain enough to not convict.
Which is why I think the jury instructions will matter.
AFZ
*I have a naive belief that law should be accessible and understandable to lay people. It follows therefore that lawyers should be able to explain things so non-lawyers can follow. In the same way as scientists should explain their findings to a wider audience.
Jury instructions for about an hour today, then the jury will be sent out to consider the verdict.
I Expect an outcome this week.
AFZ
The other request was to rehear the judge's instruction to the jury.
maybe they had all had enough and wanted to claim their own lives back.
By one reporter's estimate the total time spent on deliberations yesterday and today was about ten hours. On the other hand the forty-three counts are fairly close to identical. If you decide that Trump's payoff of Michael Cohen in February 2017 [ is / is not ] a crime you'll probably reach the same conclusion about Trump's payoff of Michael Cohen in March 2017.
For those who are not aware of the meme, Googling "[ anything ] Rule 34" is extremely NSFW.
If he is...
I can almost assure you that, while I have no way of knowing what will happen, I am certain that it won't be anything resembling a normal presidency, even if Trump remains out and about.
The dude is going to be a felon, convicted by the state of New York, serving the highest office of a government and military headquartered in Washington DC, a federal district. The jurisdictional brawls alone are going to be wild.
But apart from all that...
If I were advising Trump, I'd suggest that he pull a George And Lurleen, and get Ivanka nominated as the Republican candidate, with the understanding that, if elected, she would formulate policy largely on his counsel. That might somewhat spare him the challenges of trying to govern directly as a convicted criminal.
I actually don't think it's be much worse than direct administration by Donald Trump. And Ivanka would provide some welcome variation to the ongoing series of trainwrecks.
Proves?
The former president will appeal until he gets what he wants, and then crow that justice was finally done and that the entire sham proved the need for a real law and order president to replace the insane liberal judges with honest judges, who are above the influence of politics.
Stunningly dishonest and disingenuous throughout. Trying to make out that it's all a political prosecution when even she (inadvertently) admitted that he did exactly what he's accused of - if you listen carefully to what she said.
The most simple example of her dishonesty is this: She launched into a whole polemic about how it doesn't matter because Biden is so awful and that Americans don't care about this, they care about how the American economy is dire etc. etc. In this diatribe, she said that people know they're paying $8 for a batch of eggs. So I looked it up. Eggs are cheaper this year than last and $3.
This is where we are. The whole context of the debate is not between competing arguments and perspectives, it's about facts vs lies. We knew that anyway, of course.
What's most interesting to me, is that one of the jurors in their pre-selection questionnaire, indicated that prior to the trial, their only source of news was Truth Social. In the course of the trial, this one of the twelve listened to the evidence and found it sufficient to believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald J Trump is guilty.
It's probably worth remembering that this is the weakest of the four cases against Trump.
So, that leads me to two inevitable conclusions:
1. If Trump's other cases go to a jury, he will be convicted.
2. Politically, the issue is one of media and information. If people see the facts, Trump cannot win. I don't mean with the MAGAs, they're gonna vote for him anyway, but they are only a minority. It's all about the independents and turnout.
Just my thoughts...
AFZ
That's quite a level of certainty! Assuming those trials even occur. And that "all things being equal" really are.
If they reach juries. I am confident that juries will convict if they get the chance.
I am not confident that either federal case or the Georgia case will reach juries.
Let me explain my reasoning here.
The New York case was a tricky one. They had very compelling evidence that Trump had falsified the records. That was easy. Making the case for a felony because it was in furtherance of another crime was harder. Not because I don't think the evidence was there but because the defence could throw mud and try to create enough doubt to hang a jury or get an acquittal. They failed to do so.
In both federal cases, and the Georgia case the evidence is much more straight forward. The jury selection process in NY was robust enough that even someone who previous only got their news from Truth Social was able to weigh the evidence and come to this verdict.
Hence, my argument that if Trump faces more juries, he will be convicted.
The federal cases are the ones most likely to fail. Not because they are weak cases, they really are not. The risk is Judge Cannon in Florida and the Supreme Court are aiding Trump with significant delays. If Trump wins in November, he can probably stop the cases. I say probably because in theory, he shouldn't be able to stop an independent prosecutor, but I think he probably would be able to.
Georgia is another matter, but Trump's legal manoeuvering thus far has been very effective at delaying things and with this Supreme Court, he can probably force a stay in Georgia's procedures whilst in office.
If those three cases and 40-odd felony charges fail, it will be because the cases aren't heard, not because he is tried and acquitted.*
Not unexpected. MAGA will never listen. They are not a majority. The election will be won and lost on independents and turnout. Two things matter here: 1) Getting out the truth of who Trump is and what he plans to do and 2) Getting out the truth of Biden's record. This is the fight. I don't think it's won by any means, but I do think it winnable. I heard an interesting survey recently which reminded me of a parallel in the UK in the noughties.** When asked, people said they thought the US economy was doing poorly (not supported by the indicative data). When asked how they were doing, they said they were better off than three years ago. Dealing with this disconnect is the key for the Democrats.
AFZ
*With the usual caveat that you cannot predict what a jury will do. You can't. But the set of facts and evidence in each case is really strong.
**NHS satisfaction surveys often had this same contradiction: People thought the NHS was not doing very well but when asked about their own recent experience of healthcare, they thought it was really good. Narrative matters.
There was a lot of chatter about that guy, with the pre-verdict concern being that he'd be pro-Trump and hang the jury. But I thought it was unlikely that someone with the full Truth Social worldview woulda survived jury-selection, and my guess would be he's an apolitical who just happened to stumble upon that as a news source, and reads the articles on the news feed(*) without really buying into the promoted ideology.
(*) I've never been to Truth Social, but I'm assuming that they would link to a lot of non-partisan sources, and one could just use the site to track the mainstream media.
My best understanding is that it does not really link to non-partisan sources. I accept I could be wrong about that.
However, for our purposes here, it shows that the jury selection process and/or this juror moving beyond what they previously knew was sufficient. Which is my point, that with the usual caveats about juries, the evidence in the other cases is very clear cut.
If we play the game of why would a jury not convict? There are essentially three reasons:
1. The defendant is innocent
2. The defendant is guilty but the case has not been made beyond a reasonable doubt
3. The jury refuses to convict despite the evidence - for reasons of personal bias
I have phrased it deliberately this way. In a truly philosophical sense, we do not know the truth but we use juries to find fact. There are defendants who are genuinely innocent and juries see this. There are defendants who did do what they are accused of but the case is not strong enough and the system should acquit them. That's the difference between 1 and 2 and how it should work. Number 3 in my list is where the system is failing.
The Secret Barrister tells a story of a man accused of sexually abusing his daughters and how he found defending him when he was a junior barrister. This is in his first book. For those that do not know, he is a practising criminal barrister in the UK. The US system(s) is/are not the same as England and Wales' but are analogous for our purposes here. The view of SB is that this man had done what he was accused of but the not guilty verdict was correct in that it reflected that the Crown had not proven it beyond reasonable doubt. In the UK, juries remain constrained and cannot report their deliberations. In most of the US after a verdict, the juries are free to tell their story. So we can never know in this case whether the jury thought he was guilty but could not reach the criminal proof threshold or whether they thought he was wrongfully accused.
All of this waffle is just to explain what I mean about the system. I can point to lots of links if people want to details of the various cases. I have followed this closely. Again, my point remains that I believe if the other cases meet a jury then Trump will be convicted. His only way to avoid further convictions is to avoid the juries.
One of the legal experts I've been reading makes the point that the best advice from a legal point of view that Trump's lawyers can give him is to plead out. His chances of success at trial are very slim. Unless there's a juror who acts in line with number 3 above. This case showed us that the jury selection process was robust enough to avoid a spoiler among the jury.
Of course for political and personal reasons, Trump will never plead out. Hence his options are to avoid trial or if it gets that far, to adopt a defence of throw as much shit as possible and hope to confuse the jury. Again, NY shows this strategy will most likely fail.
Ultimately Trump's problem is that he is guilty and they have the goods on him. He was hoping to do what he's done his whole life and avoid accountability and showing that the rules don't apply to him. He failed.
In the other cases, so far, he has been partially successful in that the legal manoeuvres so far have provided some protection. But the success is, in my view dependent on avoiding juries. If he goes to trial, he loses. That's my argument.
AFZ
Switching from the question of legal jeopardy to political jeopardy, I think this is why a conviction will be politically damaging to Trump. A big part of his appeal is that the rules don't apply to him, and by implication his followers/supporters will enjoy a similar, but lesser, degree of impunity. That's damaging to the kind of appeals he's been making. So is the fact that he's now clearly a loser. He lost.
As a conviction in state court, the U.S. Supreme Court shouldn't get involved unless there is some plausible violation of the federal Constitution or statutes involved. That said, the due process clause is highly elastic and I've long ago given up on predicting what SCOTUS will do.
Yep. This is a state court proceeding involving violation of state law, so the train should stop at the New York Court of Appeals, absent violation of federal rights. And normally—with the caveat you’ve noted about the current SCOTUS—this means application of a right that hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet, not just a difference of opinion on something that’s firmly established.
And just to add, for SCOTUS to overturn the verdict, there’d have to be a plausible argument not just that his rights under federal law (which almost always means under the US Constitution) were violated, but also that but for the violation of his rights under federal law, the jury would have reached a different verdict, or that the violation was so egregious he couldn’t have received a fair trial.
So while, for example, I can see a plausible argument that the gag order violated his free speech rights, I don’t see a plausible argument that but for the gag order, he would have been acquitted or that the gag order deprived him of a fair trial.
Since this was a New York state trial he will have to appeal through the state courts. I do not think the SCOTUS will get involved since this is dealing with a state law.
“He sounded like Queeg in The Caine Mutiny: ‘Ah, but the strawberries. That's where I had them.’”
I watched that a few years back. It occured to me that one would get a very different image than is common about Humphrey Bogart's screen persona.
Of course, he will appeal, and the appeal process will probably not be over until early in 2025.
Will this affect the election results? We shall see.
The US had better hope that sufficient marginal voters have enough sense to reject the cult nonsense. Otherwise, God forbid, there might well be 4 more years of this narcissist megalomaniac and his hypnotic powers over the naive.
I do hope the sentencing is something that will produce the maximum inconvenience for him and the minimum political or fundraising capital. That will take a great deal of wisdom to sort out.