A Primer on the Multiple Grounds for Appeal (Jonathan Turley)

DGS49

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2012
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To save yins from the bother of wading through ads and what not, I have extracted the meat of it...

The Judge
Acting Supreme Court justice Juan Merchan was handpicked for this case rather than randomly selected. This is only the latest in a litany of Trump cases where Merchan has meted out tough rulings against Trump and his organization. With any other defendant, there would likely be outrage over his selection. Merchan donated to President Biden. Even though the state bar cleared that violation based on the small size of the contribution, it later stressed that no such contributions were appropriate for a judge. We learned later that Merchan has contributed to a group to stop the GOP and Trump. Merchan’s daughter is also a Democratic organizer who has helped raise millions against Trump and the GOP and for the Democrats.

To his credit, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig has previously said that this case was legally dubious, uniquely targeted Trump and could not succeed outside of an anti-Trump district. On the judge, he recently challengedcritics on the fairness of assigning a Biden donor who has earmarkeddonations for “resisting the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.” He asked “Would folks have been just fine with the judge staying on the case if he had donated a couple bucks to “Re-elect Donald Trump, MAGA forever!”? “Absolutely not.”

What is equally disturbing is the failure of Merchan to protect the rights of the defendant and what even critics admit were distinctly pro-prosecution rulings in the trial. It is not just the appearance of a conflict with Judge Merchan but a record of highly biased decisions. In watching Merchan in the courtroom, I was shocked by his rulings as at times incomprehensible and conflicted.

The Charges

A leading threshold issue will be the decision to allow Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively try Trump for violations of federal law. The Justice Department declined any criminal charges against Trump under federal election law over the alleged “hush money” payments. The Federal Election Commission likewise found no basis for a civil fine. With no federal prosecution, Bragg decided to use an unprecedented criminal theory not only to zap a dead misdemeanor into life (after the expiration of the statute of limitation) but to allow him to try violations of not only federal election law but also federal taxation violations. In other words, the Justice Department would not prosecute federal violations, so Bragg effectively did it in state court.

Even when closing arguments were given, analysts on various networks admitted that they were unclear about what Bragg was alleging. The indictment claimed a violation under New York’s election law 17-152 that the falsification of business records were committed to further another crime as an unlawful means to influence the election. However, in a maddeningly circular theory, that other crime could be the falsification of business records. It could also be violations of federal election and taxation laws, which Trump was never charged with, let alone convicted of.

The Evidence

Judge Merchan allowed a torrent of immaterial and prejudicial evidence to be introduced into the trial by the prosecution. That included testimony from porn actress Stormy Daniels that went into details about having sex with Trump. She included a clear suggestion that Trump raped her. After this utterly disgraceful testimony, Merchan expressed regret but actually blamed the defense counsel, despite their prior objections to the testimony. He had previously chastised counsel for making continued objections, but now he criticized them for not continuing to make objections.

Merchan was equally conflicted in his other orders. For example, he allowed the prosecutors to introduce the plea agreement of Michael Cohen to federal election violations as well as the non-prosecution agreement of David Pecker on such violations. However, it was allowed only for the purposes of credibility and context. He issued an instruction that the jury could not consider the plea or the agreement to establish or impute the guilt of Trump.

The prosecutors then proceeded to expressly state that it was “a fact” that federal election violations occurred in this case and that Trump ordered those violations. They also solicited such statements from witnesses like Cohen. Merchan overruled the objections that the prosecutors were eviscerating his instruction. Merchan also barred the use of a legal expert, former FEC Chair Brad Smith, who was prepared to testify that such payments cannot be viewed as federal election violations and would not affect the election even if they were considered contributions, since they would not even have had to be reported until after the election.

Merchan is likely to be upheld in denying the expert, since the court retains the authority to state what the law is to the jury. The problem is that Merchan failed to do so. Worse still, he allowed the jury to hear the opposite in the repeated false claim that these payments were campaign contributions.

The Instructions
Even with all of the reversible errors, some of us held out hope that there might be a hung jury. That hope was largely smashed by Merchan in his instructions to the jury. The court largely used standard instructions in a case that was anything but standard. However, the instruction also allowed for doubt as to what the jury would ultimately find. When the verdict came in, we were still unsure what Trump was convicted of.

Merchan allowed the jury to find that the secondary offense was any of the three vaguely defined options. Even on the jury form, they did not have to specify which of the crimes were found. Under Merchan’s instruction, the jury could have split 4-4-4 on what occurred in the case. They could have seen a conspiracy to conceal a federal election violation, falsification of business records or taxation violations. We will never know. Worse yet, Trump will never know.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the requirement of unanimity in criminal convictions is sacrosanct in our system. While there was unanimity that the business records were falsified to hide or further a second crime, there was no express finding of what that crime may have been. In some ways, Trump may have been fortunate by Merchan’s cavalier approach. Given that the jury convicted Trump across the board, they might have found all of three secondary crimes. The verdict form never asked for such specificity.

[Still quoting Turley]
These are just a few of the appellate issues. There are other challenges, including but not limited to due process violations on the lack of specificity in the indictment, vagueness of the underlying state law and the lack of evidentiary foundation for key defenses like “the legitimate press function.” They are the reason why many of us view this case is likely to be reversed in either the state or federal systems. None of that is likely to dampen the thrill in this kill in Manhattan.

But if Biden wins the election before this conviction is overturned, history’s judgment will be deafening. [end quote]

Turley describes the whole trial as Bragg's "Thrill Kill," and indeed that's what it seems to be. While I am trying to minimize my readings on this matter to save my digestion, I am astounded, day after day, at the number of apparently-literate people who have watched this whole thing play out and can still say there is some legitimacy to it.

Sadly, this is NEW FUCKING YORK we are looking at here, and the appellate courts in NYC may also be inflicted with TDS, so who knows where it will go in the next steps? At the Federal level - appealing to the USSC - this whole thing will be thrown out and the only real question is whether the high court will smack the bastards down, as they should, but probably won't. They will merely reverse the case and tell Bragg et al to go pound salt.
 
Appeal is going to take a long time to hear. Start counting the days till it happens.
 
It's the same guy that went on and on how Trump would never be convicted in the first place.....He's getting paid coming and going.....He's getting tiresome.
 
When the verdict came in, we were still unsure what Trump was convicted of.

Running as a Rep against FJB comes to mind......

~S~
 
An appeal could take a year or four years depending on New York's court schedule... Trump will be free on his own recognizance and allowed to travel for the campaign... if Merchan doesn't allow this it will trigger a US supreme court complaint for election tampering and then SCOTUS will get the trial transcripts....
 
And appeal could go fairly quickly, but that's the last thing the Trump team wants.

The prosecution's case was airtight, the behavior of judge and prosecution was impeccable. Thus, the Trump team knows they will lose any appeal. And the Trump team absolutely does not want another humiliation before the election.

Trump's only hope is to somehow win the election and declare himself dictator. Thus, the Trump team has to make the appeal happen after the election.

Also, it's possible that a jail sentence will be suspended until the appeal is over, so delaying the appeal keeps Trump out of prison for that time.
 
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An appeal could take a year or four years depending on New York's court schedule... Trump will be free on his own recognizance and allowed to travel for the campaign... if Merchan doesn't allow this it will trigger a US supreme court complaint for election tampering and then SCOTUS will get the trial transcripts....
Trump is not free. As a convicted felon he's not allowed to leave the state without permission. And he has to go to meetings with his parole officer. He is also released on the bond conditions of all four of his indictments.
Technically Trumps release from being in jail pending trial could be rescinded because he violated his condition of release, by committing a crime while released.
 
An appeal could take a year or four years depending on New York's court schedule... Trump will be free on his own recognizance and allowed to travel for the campaign... if Merchan doesn't allow this it will trigger a US supreme court complaint for election tampering and then SCOTUS will get the trial transcripts....

You know all the delays Trump put into the system to avoid court? Now that shit works against him.


To save yins from the bother of wading through ads and what not, I have extracted the meat of it...
Turley needs to wipe that orange shit off his lips and just admit he was wrong.
 
It's all about the timing. Yes, there is a 100% chance that shit show will be overturned and that fake judge will have fucked around and found out. But the case has to go through a covey of shit-eating DEI tree apes first and then the Supremes will take over and quell the Cat 5 chimpout.

And we'll be several months into President Trump's 2nd term.... it's all good.

50 million dollars in 2 days and a 6 point bump in the polls.... I repeat, it's all good. :laughing0301:


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50 million dollars in 2 days and a 6 point bump in the polls.... I repeat, it's all good.

You don't really believe that he raised that much, do you?

As for the polls, RCP right now has the race with only a 0.8 edge for Trump.

Morning Consult and Ipsos have Biden ahead.
 
You don't really believe that he raised that much, do you?

As for the polls, RCP right now has the race with only a 0.8 edge for Trump.

Morning Consult and Ipsos have Biden ahead.
I think I get it. Your native language is lying and you just can't believe anyone would ever tell the truth about anything.

That's between you and your online therapist. I don't want to get involved.
 
To save yins from the bother of wading through ads and what not, I have extracted the meat of it...
Turley only says what he's told these days, and you shouldn't consider the crap he dribbles out to be legal advice,
 
It's all about the timing. Yes, there is a 100% chance that shit show will be overturned and that fake judge will have fucked around and found out. But the case has to go through a covey of shit-eating DEI tree apes first and then the Supremes will take over and quell the Cat 5 chimpout.

And we'll be several months into President Trump's 2nd term.... it's all good.

50 million dollars in 2 days and a 6 point bump in the polls.... I repeat, it's all good. :laughing0301:


View attachment 955798
Are you really that stupid? Your fantasies about Joe Biden have no bearing on the fact the tRump is now a 34 times convicted felon.
 
When the verdict came in, we were still unsure what Trump was convicted of.

Running as a Rep against FJB comes to mind......

~S~
If Turley actually said that then it should be a dead giveaway that he's just fluffing for faux.

And you're falling for it.

Again.

lol
 
An appeal could take a year or four years depending on New York's court schedule... Trump will be free on his own recognizance and allowed to travel for the campaign... if Merchan doesn't allow this it will trigger a US supreme court complaint for election tampering and then SCOTUS will get the trial transcripts....
That's gonna depend on how much more and how often he attacks the judge and his family before sentencing I would say.
 

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