Guilty? Not guilty? Mistrial? In each case, here’s what happens after Trump verdict

Guilty? Not guilty? Mistrial? In each case, here’s what happens after Trump verdict

A momentous event in American politics now rests on 12 jurors, the Manhattanites deciding the case of Donald Trump.

Those men and women, mostly white, most appearing to be in their 30s and 40s, will decide whether Trump becomes the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime.

Thursday marks their second day of deliberations on whether Trump committed felonies by falsifying business records to conceal a sex scandal. Jurors returned to their deliberations at 11:15 a.m. after spending more than an hour in the courtroom Thursday reviewing evidence and the judge’s instructions.

Here are three potential outcomes. 

Conviction

A guilty verdict would uncork frantic weeks of speculation about whether Trump might be imprisoned in the middle of his attempted political comeback. A sentencing decision would likely land in just over a month, perhaps around or after the Republican convention.

Several veteran criminal lawyers contacted by CBC News deem a conviction probable based on their reading of the trial.

“It’s pretty likely,” said Mark Cohen, a longtime New York City criminal lawyer, as both a prosecutor and now a defence attorney.

Another former federal prosecutor, Eugene Rossi, even put odds to it: “I think there’s a 75 to 80 per cent chance of a conviction,” he said. 

Former state prosecutor Bennett Gershman says he’s always expected a conviction, even moreso upon the strength of the prosecution’s closing arguments.

To these analysts, the prosecution has proven the key facts: that Trump paid off a porn star to cover up their fling; that he participated in a coverup of the payments; and, crucially, that he did this to influence the 2016 election and intended to violate either election-spending or tax laws.

If the jury convicts, the judge would normally deliver his sentence in six to eight weeks. And on these charges, Justice Juan Merchan has a wide range of options.

It’s a staggeringly vast gamut of potential penalties that run from less than a slap on the wrist, to a warning, to a minor punishment, to serious jail time.

Trump could receive anything from an unconditional discharge, meaning he’s free without conditions; to probation, where he could have his travel limited or be forced to undergo community service; or face prison sentences of up to four years for each of the 34 counts. 

Few analysts expect prison time. The judge even scolded Trump’s attorney for discussing jail in his closing argument as an improper attempt to sway the jury.

“[Prison is] highly unlikely,” said New York criminal defence lawyer Julie Rendelman, noting Trump’s age, his lack of a criminal record and the charges in this case being the lowest class of non-violent felony.

Not everyone is as certain. 

Trump’s behaviour during the trial — with his frequent trashing of the judge and witnesses — has made a prison sentence more possible, says Cohen.

Before the trial, he says, he’d have assumed Trump would get probation. But judges have a responsibility in sentencing to promote respect for the law.

“And Trump’s done his best to promote disrespect for the law,” Cohen said. 

Within days of the verdict, Trump would meet with a probation officer, tasked with writing a pre-sentencing assessment. 

Cohen warns that Trump could imperil himself further in that meeting. If he keeps denying his guilt, shows no contrition or lies, that would wind up in the pre-sentencing report and be an aggravating element. 

Cohen’s advice to Trump for that meeting: staying mute is better than continuing to deny your guilt. 

An appeal would seem inevitable. In any case, the U.S. Constitution would allow Trump to keep running for president even if he were in jail – as one candidate did a century ago. 

Mistrial

This is another outcome observers deem plausible: a deadlocked jury, leading the judge to declare a mistrial. Trump’s circle is reportedly pulling for this, pinning its hopes on one juror who’s been making friendly eye contact with them throughout the trial.

“You only need one [holdout juror],” said Rossi, who puts the chances of a hung jury at about 20 per cent.

To some observers, this outcome would be more equitable than a conviction. Tim Bakken, a former prosecutor, questions the fairness of the case.

The felony charges against Trump rest, he says, on an unjustly loose application of the underlying statutes: the tax, state- and federal-level election laws Trump is accused of intending to break. 

Prosecutors have argued, and the judge has agreed, to instruct the jury that all they have to do is agree Trump intended to break one of those three laws by falsifying those records; it doesn’t matter which law, or even if jurors all settle on the same one.

“[This is] vague and broad, and thus nearly impossible to defend against,” said Bakken, now a professor at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. 

“In fairness to accused people, such references, absent a precise definition, would not be allowed in most criminal trials.”

One former prosecutor who’s now a conservative legal commentator was even more scathing: He called the case a travesty.

There’s not the slightest shred of evidence, Andrew McCarthy wrote in the National Review, that in making those payments Trump had any awareness of the underlying laws he’s accused of trying to break. 

And he lambasted not only the judge for allowing those aforementioned instructions – but also Trump’s defence team for failing to push back.

Merchan “has aided and abetted” the prosecution, he wrote this week. “The fix is in here.” 

If one juror agrees, and refuses to convict, the case faces a mistrial. Which then raises the question of whether Trump will be tried again – and when.

Whether there’s a retrial would depend, some observers opined, on just how deadlocked the jury was. That math matters, Rendelman says.

“Is it 11-1 to convict or 11 … to acquit?” she said. Gershman concurred: If there’s just one holdout for an acquittal, he called it certain the case will be tried again.

When would that happen? Some lawyers say a retrial could start within weeks. Rendelman doesn’t expect it before the election, and suggests it may not even happen, depending on the election result.

Acquittal 

Almost no one is predicting this – a 12-0, unanimous verdict in Trump’s favour, in a city where he’s unpopular, in a case laden with unflattering details, from his infidelity, to his lying, to his habit of not paying bills.

Not even Trump is predicting an acquittal. 

“Mother Teresa could not beat these charges,” he said Wednesday, as the jury began deliberations.

“The whole thing is rigged.”

Outside the courthouse, one of his fans agreed. A 57-year-old Brooklyn construction worker, Joe Palau, was wearing a red MAGA cap and holding a U.S. flag upside-down in protest.

He’s hoping for a hung jury, at best. But whatever happens, he says, he shares another Trump prediction: that he’ll be elected president again.

“If he’s found guilty, more people will go to him. More people,” Palau said.

Published at Mon, 15 Apr 2024 09:35:06 +0000

U.S. Supreme Court justice Alito blames wife for flying flag associated with Trump election deniers

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has rejected calls to step aside from cases involving former president Donald Trump and Jan. 6 defendants, saying his wife hoisted controversial flags that flew above two homes.

“My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not,” Alito wrote Wednesday.

In letters to Congress, Alito said his wife, Martha-Ann, was responsible for flying both an upside-down flag over their home in 2021 as well as an “Appeal to Heaven” flag at their New Jersey beach house last year. Both flags were prominent at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“I am confident that a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases would conclude that the events … do not meet the applicable standard for recusal,” he wrote. “I am therefore required to reject your request.”

The court has recently heard arguments in questions involving the immunity of presidents who’ve left office, as well as obstruction of a federal proceeding. The impending rulings could have consequences for existing federal charges Trump faces with respect to his efforts to prevent Joe Biden from taking office after the 2020 election.

Trump on his Truth Social platform praised Alito, who was nominated in 2005 by then-president George W. Bush.

Alito explained to the New York Times, which first broke the story about the upside-down flag, that his wife put it up after a heated dispute with anti-Trump neighbours. 

“As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused,” said the 74-year-old justice who wrote the 2022 opinion that has upended access to abortion for women nationwide.

Alito also noted that the beach property is in his wife’s name. 

WATCH | Recapping the arguments in the case that could affect Trump prosecutions:

What about these flags?

An upside-down American flag has come to be a symbol associated with Trump’s bogus fraud claims. Dozens of the pro-Trump rioters were carrying similarly inverted flags and chanting slogans like “Stop the Steal” on Jan. 6, 2021. The U.S. Flag Code states that the American flag is not to be flown upside down “except as a signal of dire distress in instance of extreme danger to life or property.”

The “Appeal to Heaven” banner dates to the Revolutionary War. Six schooners outfitted by George Washington to intercept British vessels at sea flew the flag in 1775 as they sailed under his command. It became the maritime flag of Massachusetts in 1776 and remained so until 1971, Ted Kaye, secretary for the North American Vexillological Association, which studies flags and their meaning, told The Associated Press last week.

According to Americanflags.com, the pine tree on the flag symbolized strength and resilience in the New England colonies, while the words “Appeal to Heaven” stemmed from the belief that God would deliver the colonists from tyranny.

Alito noted the American Revolution history.

“I was not aware of any connection between this historic flag and the ‘Stop the Steal Movement’ and neither was my wife,” Alito wrote.

The flag was little seen in modern times until recent years. Jared Holt, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think-tank that tracks online hate, disinformation and extremism, said some adherents today fly it to identify with a “patriot” movement that obsesses over the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. Others adhere to a Christian nationalist worldview that seeks to elevate Christianity in public life and government.

Holt called the display outside Alito’s home “alarming,” as those who fly the flag are often advocating for “more intolerant and restrictive forms of government aligned with a specific religious philosophy.” 

Martha-Ann Alito did not fly it to associate herself with the rioters or the effort to overturn the 2020 results, her husband asserted. Alito wrote: “She makes her own decisions and I honour her right to do so.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson displays the Appeal to Heaven flag in the hallway outside his office next to the flag of his home state, Louisiana.

Johnson told The Associated Press earlier this month he did not know the flag had come to represent the “Stop the Steal” movement.

“Never heard that before,” he said.

What are the ethics?

Alito’s explanation is unlikely to satisfy Democratic critics, but they have little recourse, though those in the Senate have asked for a meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts.

Judicial ethics codes focus on the need for judges to be independent, avoiding political statements or opinions on matters they could be called on to decide. The U.S. Supreme Court had long gone without its own code of ethics, but it adopted one in November 2023 in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices after stories surfaced around justices Clarence Thomas and Sonya Sotomayor.

The Senate’s judiciary committee approved legislation last year that would set stricter standards. But Republicans have been staunchly opposed to any efforts to tell the court what to do.

A law that applies to Supreme Court justices and all other federal judges lays out several criteria that require recusal. The language that appears most relevant in Alito’s case reads: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

The only potential consequence for refusing to step aside is impeachment by the House of Representatives and removal from office by the Senate, which has never happened in American history.

Last year, Alito didn’t take part in an appeal involving Phillips 66. He didn’t explain his decision, but his financial disclosure showed he owns between $15,000 and $50,000 in the company’s stock.

Thomas also heard the Supreme Court cases involving immunity and obstruction. His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Biden, and she was known to have been in close contact with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6, 2021, urging him in text messages to stand firm in efforts to prevent the certification of Biden’s win.

“You know, it was an emotional time. I’m sorry these texts exist,” Ginni Thomas told a congressional committee over a year later, though she still admitted she had “concerns” about the 2020 election.

“It’s laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence,” she told the committee. “The man is independent and stubborn.”

Published at Thu, 30 May 2024 11:58:08 +0000