“When a defendant honestly believes he can’t possibly get a fair trial from the judge, one of the tactics is to antagonize the judge to a point of causing reversible errors,” Dershowitz says. “That is what happened in the Chicago 7 case, and I was one of the lawyers on the appeal in that case. Abbie Hoffman provoked Judge Hoffman to such a degree that the judge made mistake after mistake. And courts of appeal often reverse convictions or verdicts when the judge has made serious errors.”
What a dick. This does not sound like the legal process at work at all. Besides, innocent people would never do this.
The tactics have included attacks on Engoron’s court clerk, filibustering the prosecution’s witnesses with repetitive questions, and raising legal arguments the judge had already specifically prohibited.
Responding to these provocations with contempt charges is correct and proper. Any appeal court judge is going to see that Trump was treated with kid gloves here.
And it kinda doesn’t matter what political party the appeal judge is. They really don’t like people being disrespectful to them and ignoring their orders. It’s like the number one thing all judges hate. This strategy will probably not work.
I don’t know about that last part so much. Current conservatives have shown that there is no level that they won’t sink to and no level of hypocrisy they won’t espouse.
Caveat being it is to further their own lust for power. The second they are on the receiving end serious injustices are taking place.
It’s so dumb that an appeal for a mistrial can get the whole case thrown out rather than simply retried with a different judge
Most mistrials are retried from the beginning. I imagine it’s mostly the cases that involve misconduct on the judges behalf that get throw out, as that’s a strong argument for a 6th Amendment violation.
At this point, his strategy is to delay, delay, delay, get elected, and pardon himself.
Dude needs to stand before a firing line, not go to jail.
Throw all of them in with the normal prison population and any conservative that tries to “liberate” them.
I guess he is daring NY Judge, because it is a civil case.
He probably should have his release conditioned on gag order in federal cases. And he should be jailed if he breaks it.
If the fear is that his fans will riot, newsflash: they follow identity politics, they don’t care how guilty trump is. Whatever they plan to do, they will do it anyway. So either treat him like you would treat anyone else for similar crimes or just forget about trials and let him do whatever he wants without any consequence. Because there’s no point in wasting time if he can’t be punished.
The defense is just trumping up reasons for endless appeals.
I see what you did there
Im glad you have not gone blind.
This reads like a dumpster fire. I hope the judge is way more level headed than I.
Same as every other time he has tried to stir shit with these trials. All they have to do is keep a level head and let the hammer drop. They’ve got him, the evidence is there, all they have to do is get the trials to go through with as few hiccups as possible. These judges need to keep a level head and they should be able to do so easily because, despite all the petulant whining and diversionary tactics, they’ve got him.
People said this many times before and he weaseled out of it. I will be optimistic if and I stress IF he ever faces consequences
Fucking do it already.
Someone said that he could still become president even if he went to prison. Is that true? I don’t understand how that would even work.
There’s some weird argument by his cult that it’s not in the constitution that a president can’t be in prison. It’s a lot of mental gymnastics, ignoring the fact that he traitorously stole classified nuclear documents from the US government, along with subverting democracy in the RICO case with the 18 co-conspirators.
You’re conflating two things here. There is absolutely nothing in the cotus that bars someone from becoming POTUS because they are in jail. Imo, there should not be, just like you should not lose your right to vote simply for being a felon.
However, there is something in the cotus that bard someone from being an officer of the state if they’ve been part of an insurrection. This, imo, should bar him, but I’m curious to see how the court cases play out.
Isn’t being a traitor to the US (RICO case + stolen documents + Jan 6th insurrection) against the constitution though?
This Chicago Tribune article goes into more detail.
Treason is defined in the cotus, and none of the three things you posted would rise to the level of treason. The article even talks about it. Neither the Rico charges nor the classified documents, even with a conviction, would bar him from the presidency, but the jab 6th could make him ineligible.
Technically speaking, yes. Trump could be sent to prison tomorrow and still be elected President. There isn’t any “the President can’t be currently incarcerated” requirement. (Likely because the founding fathers thought it was self evident that a criminal shouldn’t be elected President.)
As for how it would work, nobody knows. It’s never happened. Would he get to go to the White House for 4 years and then have to return to prison to serve the rest of his sentence? (Assuming here that he couldn’t just pardon himself.) Would he need to conduct presidential business from the Square Cell instead of the Oval Office? Would a SCIF need to be set up in the prison so that Trump could review classified materials from his cell?
We would be in totally uncharted territory if this happened.
Never gonna happen. Judges aren’t going to do shit to this guy without a guilty jury verdict.
Even then they’ll probably wimp out.
Again…
I can think of no better defense than directly antagonizing law enforcement
Seems to work for anyone with enough money this far.
Do it
