Trump Guilty Verdict: “It smells rotten because it was rotten”
Our Op-ed in The Telegraph (UK): “Faith in our systems has been broken for at least half the country. Things are about to go from bad to worse.”
Ever since the Trump verdict was announced, I’ve been doing radio and TV interviews, and we were requested to submit an Op-ed to The Telegraph (UK) on the verdict. So I haven’t had a chance to comment here.
If I can find audio of my interviews I’ll post it at the bottom as an update.
Here is The Telegraph Op-Ed Kemberlee and I submitted, which within the 650 word limit expresses our view, Love or hate Trump, this rotten trial is an assault on justice [archive]:
Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in a trial in Manhattan on May 30. Democrats are singing with joy, but it was a truly sad day for America.
This was a prosecution that never would have been brought had the defendant not been Donald Trump, and had Trump not run for reelection in 2024. Rather than prosecuting an obvious crime, prosecutors set out to prosecute a political opponent. And to do so, they invented a criminal theory to pursue.
For many years this case, involving alleged bookkeeping issues in recording payments to ‘Stormy Daniels’ to buy her silence, had lingered unprosecuted for so long that the charges, low-level misdemeanors, no longer could be brought because time had expired.
But then along came Alvin Bragg, a Left-wing prosecutor who ran for office on the promise that he would do what prior prosecutors had failed to do, to get Donald Trump. The case was politically motivated from the start. To get Trump at all costs to try to stop his presidential campaign.
Yet to get the case to court, Bragg had to turn the charges into felonies, with longer time limits. So he invented a novel and untested legal theory, maligned even by liberal legal commentators, that the bookkeeping issues were to illegally influence an election – his own 2016 winning election.
There is nothing illegal about paying money to buy silence. It happens every day in court cases and business deals, where money is paid for non-disclosure agreements. And there is nothing illegal about politicians hiding their dirty laundry, happens every campaign. The bookkeeping issue was the hook to turn lawful political activity into a crime.
This case born in politics then turned into a circus. The trial judge, whose family had strong political ties to Democrats, issued ruling after ruling hamstringing Trump’s defense. The prosecution was allowed to play hide and seek with its legal theory of criminality, so much so that Trump never really knew what he was defending until the very end.
Then the judge issued jury instructions that seemed to fly in the face of our jurisprudence, by allowing the jury convict on felony charges without unanimous agreement as to what were the specific illegal acts to influence the election.
If you insist on charging a former president and clear front-runner in a presidential election, then you better be sure those charges are clear, concise, and legitimate. This was certainly not the case here. The jury was drawn from one of the most heavily Democrat jurisdictions in the country. So the likelihood of Trump prevailing always was slim.
A politically motivated prosecution by Democrat prosecutors presided over by a politically connected Democrat judge in a politically Democrat jurisdiction against the likely Republican presidential nominee in an election year. It smells rotten because it was rotten. The whole thing stinks.
Whether you love or hate Trump, this conviction should appall you. This is not about Donald Trump. It’s about the weaponisation of the criminal justice system against a political opponent. It’s the type of prosecutorial and judicial conduct we expect in Putin’s Russia. Prior to this case, America was deeply divided. Now it’s tearing at the seams.
Lawfare very easily can become warfare when people lose trust in the institutions that are supposed to protect against political persecution. There were so many errors in the trial proceedings that the likelihood of the case being overturned on appeal is high, but that will come after the November election. The damage to the legitimacy of our system has been done regardless of how the appeal turns out.
This is not what America’s founders envisioned, it’s not what the framers of our constitution intended, and it’s anathema to everything that made America great. Faith in our systems has been broken for at least half the country. Things are about to go from bad to worse.
For those of you interested, you can read the full Jury Insructions. This is the part that has generated a lot of controversy, and to which we referred in the Op-ed:
Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were.
In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws. [at p. 31]
(added) This multiple choice non-unanimous option is not inconsequential, as some have claimed. It’s not as if the jury found a defendant shot someone, but disagreed on how many shots were fired. Here, whether and what unlawful means were used to interfere with an election is an essential element of whether this was a felony (which is the only way the case could be brought). To have a non-unanimous verdict on this essential element of the felony should be reversible error.
More to follow, for sure.
UPDATES
I appeared last night, looking a little haggard, on The First TV with Mike Slater discussing not only the conviction, but my view that the judge will give Trump at least a symbolic jail sentence, even though for an almost 80 year old non-violent first offender that would not be the norm.
What is next for Donald Trump after his guilty verdict in New York City? @wajacobson explains to @SlaterRadio. pic.twitter.com/wXGfDnBeWe
— The First (@TheFirstonTV) May 31, 2024
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Comments
Democrats cannot be trusted with power. They are a danger to themselves and others.
It is time to dissolve the Democrat party, and let its prior members find a party that is not tainted by Democrat corruption.
Look up what a guy named Nathaniel Grigsby said about the Democrat Party.
Very interesting reference.
I had never heard of the gentleman before.
He apparently died in 1890, and mandated that on his tombstone he wanted to condemn the Democrat party as the “party of treaeson”.
He was a friend of Abraham Lincoln.
What an enormously silly thing to say. The Dems HAVE ALL the federal power and bleating to “dissolve” the party would be like commanding tornadoes to stop forming.
And I should point out that they’re not a political party at all, they are the ruling junta, with plenty of “Republicans” members.
I don’t think you truly get exactly how nakedly the Left is willing to wield power in these last days of America.
Exactly correct, unfortunately….tragically.
It’s not just Democrats, it’s power in general. We need to stop saying – “Your team sucks, and my Team is great.”
As an example, Fetterman turns out to be pretty darn good. Kennedy (GOP) is a snake, a swamp creature.
This issue is simply the swamp’s WW2.
Washington and others of that crowd warned us of the dangers of party loyalty.
Time for Republican DAs to target corrupt Democrats. First thing to do is
I fear that this is our era’s “Fort Sumter Moment”, namely, the moment during which about half of the country comes to realize that the other half is just too morally compromised to deal with civilly any longer.
I don’t know what comes next, but this verdict is an abomination and permanent stain on this country.
This time, it doesn’t include geography. Although there has been a steep increase of folks relocating, I don’t believe that will be the entire solution.
I think we are in for some very nasty times, and much will come to a head either with the party conventions, or the night of the election.
A friend brought that up: conservatives are living among liberals, and vice versa. So it will be a neighbor v. neighbor thing. Because we have no national leadership. And that’s not just because Biden is decrepit, but because no politician considers what’s good for the country. Look at Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Her vile partisanship was an embarassment to the office and a curse on the country. As a Boomer, I grew up when shared military service united men of very different political views. Hate your stance but I respect you. Today, people are divided into tribes, and personally hate their political opponents. That is typical of tribal or clan loyalties. Vicious. .
It will be more like the first civil war I.e. the one that began on Lexington Green. Maybe the party of Tyranny will split to Canada again; this time before the shooting starts.
I think it’s more like Dredd Scott. Fort Sumter is not far behind.
I think it’s like Pearl Harbor.
Pearl Harbor actually united the country against a common enemy. Maybe that’s what we need today!
They say he lied in his check register in classification of the record. What I have yet to hear is what they think he should have classified the entry as.
I think after today, every cpa and lawyer in the country should be adding the definition of BIMBO ERUPTION to their accounting software.
I disagree. I think they should be adding “NONE OF YER DAMN BUSINESS – 1A” to their accounting software.
No joke, I have had this category in our house accounts for years now: “I resent you asking.”
Congress – using TAXPAYER MONEY – paid $17 million is sexual harassment settlements. I would LOVE to know how that money was accounted for and if the harassers disclosed those settlements as ‘in-kind contributions’ to their campaigns.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/index.html
Brilliant observation.
When different rules apply to those in power, we are no longer self governed; we are ruled.
There are no different rules. It’s the same rule as at every large employer.
This is nonsense. Congress, like every other large employer, is occasionally sued by its employees for all sorts of things, some true and some false, including but not at all limited to sexual harassment. There is probably no large employer in the land that has not been sued at some point for sexual harassment. And it is standard practice for employers to try to settle such suits, whether they’re true or not.
Of course taxpayers pay for these settlements. How else could it be? The taxpayer is the defendant.
And how could the payments possibly be “contributions” to the relevant congressmen’s campaigns? Contributions from whom? And how does the campaign come in to it?
That’s bullshit. If Congressman A sexually harasses someone and get sued, HE should be bearing that cost, he shouldn’t be able to steal from the taxpayer so that he can pay off a settlement and then, adding insult to injury, refuse to tell the taxpayers he stole from about it.
He is not the employer. The Congress is. The employee is suing the Congress, not him. And the employee is alleging sexual harassment, because that is one of the things employees routinely allege against their employers, sometimes because it’s true and sometimes not.
And it’s Congress, not him, that decides whether to settle, and if so for how much.
The government settling a lawsuit against it is not stealing, it’s routine and expected.
Their novel legal theory implies that NDAs are effectively illegal, since they’re saying Trump had to record it in public — the NDA itself was really the crime here, even though they’re used all the time. Also, Trump was responsible for knowing all this even though this legal theory was invented five minutes ago.
Don Surber today
Of course they will send him to prison
Of course they convicted him. There is no justice in New York City. The Mafia proved that a century ago when it bought off the judges. The corruption runs deep and putrid in the city that never sleeps. Alvin the Chipmunk Bragg ran for prosecutor on a platform of letting criminals run rampant and bringing Donald Trump down. No one should be surprised by the 34 cries of guilty by a jury of liberal sheep.
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Judge Merchan will put Trump in prison. He has to or the DNC’s checks to his daughter won’t clear the bank.
The state will proceed to confiscate all of Trump’s property — including Mar-a-Lago which will trigger a decades-long legal battle between Florida and New York, which will end when Floridians foolishly elect a Democrat governor.
If he was Biden, “loan repayment” would have worked.
Right out of the park, Thales!
Well, as a CPA, I have no problem recording the NDA cost along with related attorney fees as legal expense. As the author notes, NDAs are common business practice in a variety of circumstances. Plus, for Trump’s real estate development / property management firm the cost of the NDA was in no way material to understanding the company’s financial statements. As far as I can see, there’s not only zero secondary crime but no predicate misdemeanor either. The whole thing was conjured from nothing and is simply a conspiracy to get Trump. But the result has certainly opened whole new vistas of selective prosecution for tyrants and despots.
It’s enough to make the Kremlin blush.
The pendulum has swung too far. Feckless politicians and narcissistic academicians have utterly ruined a good, working system. It will get far worse, and soon. A far-right, strongman (not Trump!) will rise up who will mean what he says and do as he means. Then the crazies will find out what fascism really is. Once again, the world will be set on fire to be saved.
if the world is put on fire by an American strongman (not Trump)
who will save the world … cuz that
has been Americas job.
Who here has the caritas of Lot?
Certainly not me.
Maybe Milhouse.
The which of what?
One thing wrong there, fascism is simply another form of socialism, so a fascist is a leftist.
Fascism has always been a leftist ideology. Sort of a third way of socialism. Instead of state ownership it is state control–rather like what Democrats lust after in America
Fascism is Leftism wearing the skin-suit of order.
Traditionalism is order without tyranny, is basically Christianity in its ideal form (which Christians understand can never be made perfect on earth due to man’s fallen state, but must always be worked towards, both collectively and at the personal level).
“Academicians.”
I happen to believe that this was an inevitable result of the increased pure democracy of the USA. From the 17th Amendment to Reynolds v Sims Democrats have been committed to repeating the experience of the Greek states and rejecting the guidance of our Founders. Democrats love the idea of tyranny
Fascism is not possible without the industrial and military cooperating with the government. Instead we had a Chief of Staff who talked privately with his Chinese counterpart, an action I believe to be actual treason (the Chief of Staff has no such authority), and are now burdened with a woke military that has actively discouraged patriotic Christians from joining. Most of our large industries have moved much of their opoerations overseas, resulting in the rise of non-American citizens on the corporate ladders. (The CEO of Coca-Cola is a Brit.) The point being that our industry leaders and military officers are far more likely to join the left.
This basically eliminates the jury box from the list of boxes available to patriots to fix things.
No, it does not. A patriot on that particular jury could have prevented the convictions. The jury isn’t a place were patriots can “fix things” (that is, jury duty isn’t proactive), it’s the place where patriots have an opportunity to prevent government from going off the rails. Jury duty is where patriots can form a bar that can’t be crossed. This purpose of the jury can still work, if patriots are willing to conceal themselves to get onto juries.
Never beg out of jury duty. Vow (to yourself) to never convict an innocent person, no matter the law or the judge’s instructions.
I disagree, a jury can use its power of nullification to fix things
The jury box relies on peers that actually believe in a republican form of gov’t and eschew might makes right. When the justice system is as rigged as it is, and there are venues where you can be tried by an entire community that doesn’t hold to Rule of Law, the conditions don’t exist.
They tried Trump and found him guilty of simply being Trump. “Ooh, he’s awful, he must be a criminal.” And not a single apparatus within the legal structure could put a stop to the obvious travesty? Or didn’t want to?
I don’t think any single patriot, or any small group, can count the jury box effective anymore for justice. At least not in certain large portions of the country – especially in the only one that seems to matter: D.C.
I agree that local politics dominate.
For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law. Something like that.
Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime. –Lavrentiy Beria. Alvin Bragg went on to add: If I can’t find it I will just say maybe one of these three or if you don’t like those, you guys on the jury think one up.
My understanding is that the jurey was given a list of crimes they could chose from. Or not. Cafeteria style law.
Maybe it is just me overthinking things, but, I suspect gun shops will be doing a roaring business this weekend.
Now, if that were only true of ammo shops.
It will take at least one generation, perhaps longer, to restore a semblance of fairness to the United States judicial system, after the farcical trial and conviction of President Trump. Biden’s regime better pray DJT doesn’t use similar tactics after his accent to his second term.
This is precisely what the Regime is worried about. It’s why they’re hyperbolizing doom and gloom on leftstream media over the impeding Trump reelection. Any one of them could be prosecuted for their crimes by a DOJ not under their control.
Which is why it should begin at the County DA level just as the d/prog did in NY and in GA. Every rural Red County, even those in Blue and Purple States need to begin adhering to the new reality. The d/prog can hardly make legitimate comi, though they will try, but they brought this about through their choices to move the Overton window on what is and what is not considered to be acceptable. No crying when the local version of Boss Hogg sends Sheriff Roscoe out with BS charges (dare I say Trumped up charges) for the local d/prog officials, school superintendent, State Senator, member of Congress, Joe Biden or members of his cabinet. They wanted this. They choose this path now they have to walk it. They deserve it ‘good and hard’ as H L Mencken described until well past they point they unilaterally surrender and not one moment before.
Not with the people the top level Law Schools are producing. With them in charge it will never get better. Prayer is what it left to us.
The question is, did Trump learn ANYTHING from his clemency towards Hillary? I hope he’s been feeling a six-year burning welt of regret. It’s the only way to train the Ender that America needs.
He tried to be an American, unfortunately that didn’t work out well because we are facing an honorless enemy.
Earlier in the week, the US pier to Gaza broke and tow ships washed up onto the beach. The incompetence of that event will be marked by historians as one of the principal indications of the fall of the American Empire.
The conviction of the former POTUS under ridiculous charges in a state court (technically facing 136 years in prison for a $130,000 payment) will be marked as the obvious start of the Second American Civil War.
Buy gold. Hold currencies other than the dollar. Store water. Good luck to all.
I think this hubbub is trivial compared to what is coming. Whoever or whatever is controlling FJB is going to get this country nuked as WW3 breaks out over the evil our government is doing. A second civil war probably won’t have time to get started.
Yes, the USA is a banana republic but it is THEIR banana republic and that is all that counts. For them, reigning in Hell is better than serving in Heaven. Not since (President-select) Michelle O said she that was finally proud of the USA, has the Party been so close to Leninist Utopia. Rehabilitation of the Left is impossible.
This is behaviour that’s precisely the opposite to a banana republic. Trumps election fraud has been held to account. Seems like maga has a severe double standard
Seriously, dude, no one here thinks you’re anything but a Progressive shill.
Not true. Some of us think he’s a clinically compulsive shit-stirrer.
And I think most people who comment here are complete lunatics 🤷♂️
You forgot retard and pedophile-supporting scumbag
This may be your most retarded comment yet, Shart.
And for you, that’s saying quite a lot.
What election fraud? Nobody even alleged any election fraud. Seriously, what fraud are you talking about? And don’t come back saying that hiding the Daniels affair (assuming it even happened) was fraud. It was none of the public’s business, and it was perfectly legal and standard practice to hide it, or to try to. The public has no right to know embarrassing information about a candidate, and candidates have no duty to disclose it.
Literally found guilty of it as the referenced crime. It was clearly spelt out in the jury instruction. Do better.
No, he was literally not found guilty of election fraud. He was found guilty, for what it’s worth, of falsifying business records with the intent to commit, or to aid, or to conceal, “another crime”, which crime was unspecified in the charge.
One of the “other crimes” suggested was apparently some sort of unspecified campaign finance violation. (No evidence was presented that he intended to commit such a violation, let alone actually committed it. Even if such evidence had been presented, it still wasn’t the charge.)
But most importantly, campaign finance violations are not election fraud. So even if he had blatantly and openly violated some FEC rule, that would not be election fraud.
Professor would you approve of demanding enforcement of laws and federal regulations about looted antiquities?
Their non-enforcement is primarily a subsidy to New York City by allowing the Met to continue to exist despite half of the collection it owns being known to be illegally looted/obtained.
Why are we not enforcing laws about pillaging other cultures heritage when the beneficiaries of that decision have effectively abolished the constitution and made it clear they consider us subhuman?
We need to retaliate in a way that hurts the essence of New York City.
Until a Republican president is sworn in, we can’t demand enforcement of anything. Enforcement is entirely at the government’s discretion.
Eyes off of Biden- for the moment
Eyes off of inflation, lawlessness, inflation- for the moment
Trump frustrated and encumbered on campaigning for the duration of the trial.
Mud spun for MSM to dirty Trumps actual election
Most eyes off of issues that impact all of us people in real world. For the moment.
since the early 1900s the left has made their foothold onto americas neck..completely known
the left created the welfare state and with the help of fearful gop made it strong THEN STRONGER than our capitalist system
the very system that freed slaves ( no matter the msm/schools propaganda telling us differently)
now the summer of hate 2020 has set fear into high gear in america
defunding the police is the same as telling the military to not use force against invaders
OHHHH THEY DID THAT TOO
go take a long walk off a short fjb approved pier!!
What countries might sanction Alvin Bragg? Argentina? Columbia?
https://www.reuters.com/world/us-sanctions-three-people-abuse-russian-opposition-politician-2023-03-03/
the left laughs at the debate process
Sentencing set for July 11th.
Makes this seem more ominous.
Facts to do with what you will:
USSR Leaves Afghanistan: 02/15/89
USSR Collapses: 12/26/91
Days elapsed: 1044
US Leaves Afghanistan: 08/30/21
US date + 1044 days: 07/09/24
Days until that date: 39
I originally made this as mostly a joke.
No way to rein in a rogue judge?
There is absolute a way to stop this kind of thing; Impeachment and Removal. Remember, federal judges and most subordinate judges at every state level, aren’t only Impeachable for ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ They’re also Impeachable for ‘bad behavior.’
The problem isn’t the lack of a mechanism to rein in a rogue judge. The problem is a abject lack of appetite to rein in a rogue judge. In THAT jurisdiction, there is only upside for Merchan, both professional upside and personal upside in the form of MONEY. If he elects to stay on the bench, there is no question this will catapult him to a higher court. If he decides to cash-in and write a book and whatnot, that payday will be astronomical.
who is gonna remove a corrupt Dem judge?
This was part of the point I was making. In that city in that state, no one.
It’s funny you should mention bad behaviour. This applies to judge cannon not judge merchan
Lol. You’re so dumb. Here’s a story – from the NY Times, no less – describing the negative commentary from the sanctioning body about Merchan’s unlawful contribution to Biden.
Where’s the donation to Trump from Cannon?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/nyregion/trump-trial-judge-merchan-donations.html
Poor BartE…. So pathetic and feeble minded…
Your new screen name should be Skidmark.
I actually think this is a singular defect in our republic that the next free society to emerge may want to address in crafting its form of government. A check against power that will never be exercised is no check at all. Impeachment as it is currently instituted is toothless. The only remedy on offer for corrupt judges is the appeals process, which can be so costly and time-consuming as to scarcely constitute any real justice at all.
Carl Drega found a way.
Turns out Merchan isn’t even a regularly appointed/elected judge. He’s an “acting” judge, whatever that means under New York law. He’s been one for a few years. My question is how he can be “randomly” assigned all of the Trump cases that have been put on the docket. Randomization doesn’t work like that. It is statistically highly improbable (can’t say “impossible” without him being dead) that he would be assigned that many by sheer dumb luck. So, as one of my math profs from Hillsdale would say, “it is intuitively obvious to the casual observer that this is not a truly random event”.
He’s an acting judge on the state Supreme Court; his actual appointment is to the NYC Family Court. The number of NY Supreme Court judges in each district is capped by the state constitution, which means the court in the NYC districts doesn’t have enough judges to handle the caseload. Therefore it has become normal for the chief administrative judge to borrow judges from other courts and appoint them as acting judges on the Supreme Court.. This happened to Merchan 15 years ago, after having served 3 years on the city family court.
He wasn’t “randomly” assigned all of the Trump cases, and nobody ever claimed he was. I don’t know where people have got the idea that these cases were supposed to be assigned randomly. He was randomly assigned the original grand jury investigation, and therefore automatically got all the cases that derived from it. That’s how it works.
Oh come on, Milhouse! So maybe he is Acting Judge because of New York State Constitution’s limits. God only knows how screwed up New York’s laws are anyways, with Byzantine regulations and idiotic rules that no other state follows because they were intelligent enough to avoid them. That being said, Merchan presided over three cases involving the Trump organization, including Bannon, Weisselberg and now this case. All with 24 other justices in the District to be had.
I’m a trained Medical scientist, One incident is a data point, two points are a coincidence and three concurrent data points are a trend. Climb out of your pure ivory legal tower and see what every non-attorney is seeing in your profession right now: the New York State Judiciary is beyond corrupt to the point of being bought and paid for like a Tijuana street walker.
William A. Jacobson: Then the judge issued jury instructions that seemed to fly in the face of our jurisprudence, by allowing the jury convict on felony charges without unanimous agreement as to what were the specific illegal acts to influence the election.
The specific illegal act was fraud under New York Penal Law § 175.10. The predicate crimes only speak to intention. The predicate crime doesn’t have to be proven or even specified.
Consider the New York case concerning this very issue, De Vonish v. Keane. De Vonish was charged with burglary, which means breaking and entering with the intent to commit another crime. The other crime might have been to steal or to assault or to vandalize. The jury may have disagreed on which of these predicates were De Vonish’s actual intention. However, if the jury agreed that he broke and entered with the intention of committing another crime, that was sufficient for conviction under the burglary statute, New York Penal Law § 140.30. In other words, in the law, there is a distinction between an element, which requires unanimity, and a “means” or ways the element can be established.
If a criminal robbery statute requires the use of force or the threat of force to convict, then depending on the exact wording of the statute and the relevant judicial precedent, that can be considered a single element or as two elements. However, most jurisdictions see that as a single element with two “means” or ways the single element of the crime can be established. In other words, the jury may disagree on whether actual force or just the threat of force was used in fact, but can unanimously find the defendant guilty of burglary.
William A. Jacobson: The jury was drawn from one of the most heavily Democrat jurisdictions in the country.
New York City is where Trump made his home for decades. New York City is where Trump worked for decades. New York City is where Trump’s crimes were committed. Consequently, the people of New York City constitute a jury of his peers.
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We do read all replies and are happy to engage the topic. However, we apologize in advance if the moderation by Legal Insurrection causes our responses to be delayed or to not appear.
The 6th Amendment was incorporated to the states in 2020. Show just one post-2020 decision that allowed the predicate crime to be UNPROVEN beyond any reasonable doubt.
Instead, there is ample federal jurisprudence that requires – under the 6th Amendment – that ALL ELEMENTS of the crime must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Trump has been ‘convicted’ and he still doesn’t know for certain what he was convicted of. It’s well beyond absurd.
TargaGTS: The 6th Amendment was incorporated to the states in 2020.
Ramos v. Louisiana did not address predicates. It addressed non-unanimous final verdicts.
TargaGTS: ALL ELEMENTS of the crime must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt
Intent is the ‘element’, which can be established by different ‘means’. Consider the burglary example, where the underlying crime is unspecified.
Now, it is certainly possible that there is a wrinkle that an appeals court might find between the cases, but overturning the distinction between elements and means all together would overturn generations of legal precedent.
Bruh,
Whomever/whatever source is feeding y’all this garbage legal advice is setting you up for a severe disappointment. Please don’t take any of their legal advice and try to put into practice for yourselves lest you end up in a really bad jail cell with Big Bubba who turns you into his plaything.
I vote he takes more of it.
Oh, yes, because a fair legal system allows you to be convicted because of UNPROVEN ACCUSATIONS. Do you retards ever even listen to what you’re saying?
Targa:
Somebody on another site, an ADA, mentioned that the 4x4x4 guilty thing went against a ruling called Richmond vs. United States. Not at all familiar with that. Could you explain? These cases are not at all familiar to a physician, but I don’t think you’d want to hear about aseptic meningitis caused by nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs either.
There’s no moderation here, dumbass.
And quit with the “royal we.”
Rumor has it that Zachriel is a committee.
Yeah… all those small purple midgets in his head would qualify as a committee.
I don’t offer an opinion on that, but it’s posting name sounds like a brand of feminine hygiene product.
All of which crimes were punishable under the same jurisdiction, and didn’t rely on crimes outside of the prosecutor’s jurisdiction and for which the proper jurisdictional authority affirmatively declined to prosecute. The burglary predicates were also definable crimes, not based on loose theories of the prosecution.
Without knowing more about the case, I think it’s likely that the defense and the defendant were advised of the nature of the predicates and given a chance to provide a relevant defense. That was not the case here. Since you say that the law doesn’t require even specification of predicate crimes, it appears to be a blank check for the prosecution and vulnerable to a 6th Amendment challenge.
And if anybody is confused as to why Trump won the nomination, look no further than the utterly execrable tweets by RINOs like Hutchison and Hogan telling us we have to ‘respect the rule of law’.
…old enough to remember ABSCAM, Operation Lost Trust and the propensity of the IRS crawling up the lower GI of a target with a microscope in search of fraudelent behavior.
Yep.
Now do the Kennedy clan, Biden, Kerry, Oprah, and Sean Penn.
The end game for the Left is to create a political environment in which Biden can justify declaring martial law to either preempt the general election or prevent a triumphant Trump from taking office. Whether today’s DEI military will comply with such illegal orders in not knowable today. Careerist senior officers will comply but whether NCO’s and junior officers will is the big question.
WARNING:
THE FEDS ARE MONITORING THIS WEBSITE!!
They want all of you to be dead, just like they murdered Bryan Malinowski,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahKIlYBxxWc
They can want in one hand, and Toobin with the other.
Wait, that’s a bad analogy. Neither one would ever fill up.
They can monitor all they like. The freedom of speech is alive and well.
Good. I hope they like the way I type. Hello FBLie!
This is a major blow to the ideal of a “nation of laws”.
As a Brit, there’s a tiny bit of me that wants to quote John McClane-“welcome to the party, pal!”- but it’s only a tiny bit.
I’m as depressed as most of your commenters.
I believe that the “foot in the door” for this sort of egregious legal misconduct was Critical Legal Studies. These taught that it’s only outcomes that matter (process is unimportant, since the “master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” [one of the dumbest slogans ever coined as they are probably the best fitted to the purpose]), and the outcomes that should arise are the ones that “promote equity”.
Here, the outcomes that `should’ arise are “Trump in prison” or even “Trump dead” but the arguments are otherwise the same.
This just doesn’t logically follow. It’s obviously the case that Trump was trying to avoid public scrutiny for his actions and he did so in the most underhand manner possible. The legal theory that has been used is perfectly reasonable precisely because it accounts for his criminality. I’m seeing a lot of crying and not a lot of sober thought by right wingers
Ok. So I will take the bait.
What exactly do you see as the crime that Trump committed? What was his criminal act?
kelly_3406: What exactly do you see as the crime that Trump committed? What was his criminal act?
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records under New York Penal Law § 175.10. You’re welcome. (Also, see our previous comment on May 31, 2024 at 12:00 pm.)
So then, genius, explain to us what expense category he SHOULD have entered instead.
Not good enough. What business record did he falsify? What statement on the record was false? What statement could he have made so that it would not have been false?
Your answer is pure BS until you (or anyone) can provide those clarifications.
Regardless, let’s suppose that Trump did falsify business documents. What proof connects those falsified documents to the 2016 election, thereby turning it into a felony? The answer is nothing more than the word of convicted perjurer, Michael Cohen.
The reality is that the New York jury decided to punish Trump due to his politics, regardless of the evidence. The jury system is now broken. It is my contention that jury nullification in the OJ Simpson trial was the beginning of the end of non-partisan verdicts. Since that time, politics have tainted verdicts in blue cities against hated defendants (Republicans, J6ers, cops, Catholics, etc.).
Since what you’re referring to is a misdemeanor that had an expired statute of limitations, what was the predicate crime that both resurrected them and elevated them to felonies? I don’t recall the court ever having even said what that was, much less proving it.
“Right wingers”
“Pet-store parrots.”
Good. I hope they like the way I type. Hello FBLie!
Sorry==>duplicate post!!
No cohesive dialog, just witless prattle. What a pity.
Ah yes holding a fraud to account is a bad thing according to some. A lot of cope here
A lot of dishonesty, there.
(“there” = you)
Fraud… hmmmm… like the perfectly legal NDA…?… that fraud?
As opposed to the actual federal crime of Biden selling influence to foreign countries
A lot of dope there.
In a trial riddled by more reversible errors than Hunter Biden’s laptop existence debacle, presided over by a judge with more reasons for recusal than a fox raiding a Purdue chicken yard AND no charges specified until the actual last hours of the jury summation by the prosecution aided by collusion of federal officials out of the White House with provable visits to the White House that drop more than a reasonable suspicion doubt?
Yeah right, Lavrenty BartE-A.
One thing that was blatantly obvious was the attempt to drag the case out as long as possible to keep Trump off the campaign trail and in New York- Trump did some great work on staying visible and engaged. It was obvious in the slow ponderous drawn out prosecution witnesses, taking all Wednesdays off, stopping early in the day and then waiting 8 days between the last witness and closing arguments.
I agree that Merchon is going to either attempt jail time or house arrest in order to keep Trump locked down in New York even longer….. as well as make it an immediate remand as well as stalling the transfer of the case to the Appeals courts.
And we really need to talk about Leticia James current gambit of going after Gov Abbott for the pardon of Daniel Perry in Texas, which might be a warm up on dragging him into New York courts for shipping the illegal immigrants north.
No state court in Texas will ship Abbott to New York at the request in Lettie James, because it would be quashed at the Supreme Court of Texas level. Won’t happen. Some idiot leftist Federal District Court Judge in Austin (and we have a bumper crop of ‘em there) might try, but that would go to the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans to be quashed very quickly.
The whole ‘gonna extradite Gov Abbott to NY to put him on trial’ Ida is wish casting BS by the leftists. Not gonna happen. It is an attempt to stoke the zealots, raise money and morale on the left.
What are you talking about? As far as I know there is no such gambit. James and a bunch of other Democrats have simply asked the federal DOJ to investigate whether Perry committed a federal crime and can be prosecuted for it. Regardless of the outcome of that investigation (if it ever happens), Abbott would not be a target and would be in no jeopardy at all, and James play no role in any resulting federal prosecution of Perry.
something in my gut suspects the whirlwind has been unleashed.
The only way to know is to ask the jurors, who will surely know by now that lack of unanimity on those points makes the conviction questionable. They will have plenty of time to coordinate their testimony on the subject should someone ask.
Lots of comments, but no one addresses whether Dems will allow Trump to win the election.
This is a bit off topic but still relevant. Did Braggs ever prove the first count: falsifying business records. I haven’t heard anyone talk about it. Paying a lawyer to draft and execute an NDA sounds like a legal fee to me. Did Braggs ever prove what it should have been recorded as instead?
SCOTUS must intervene. The must tell the world. They must reassure the world that the United States is still a nation of laws, not of men.
If SCOTUS let’s this conviction stand, they will be telling the world that the United States is a nation of men, not of law. That the men in power set the laws and the laws are only as good as the people in power. The Braggs trial (and also the James trial and even the EJ Carroll trial) have told the world that equal justice under the law is no longer true in America. The world knows this. Our enemies are laughing at us. Our allies look at us with disgust.
SCOTUS must intervene. But my faith in SCOTUS is not high.
How can a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act even be part of the jury instructions? The FEC and DOJ have exclusive jurisdiction of that act. They didn’t indict Trump, let alone conviction. The NYS court has no jurisdiction over the act. As a legal matter, Trump is innocent of any violation. How can the jury even consider that?
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” was the infamous boast of Lavrentiy Beria, secret police chief to Joseph Stalin. According to official figures there were 777,975 judicial executions for political charges from 1929 to 1953 that were central to implementing and enforcing the Soviet Union’s single party rule.
Hard not to draw a comparison to Alvin Braggs campaign promises. What path is this Lawfare taking this country?