First, about the title image. When I saw the original photograph, I immediately had two thoughts. Blanche looks like a Death Eater right before Voldemort strikes him down with the “Avada Kedavra” curse. Additionally, the bedrock requirement for any trial attorney is to project confidence and leadership.
That photograph is a perfect illustration of a lack of confidence and leadership.
Second, caveats: I was a trial attorney for many years, handling civil and criminal cases, but I never practiced in New York, and although I’ve looked up some New York laws and procedures for this post, I have not exhaustively researched each point because you don’t pay me for shit.
THE JURY
In the 2020 election, Manhattan went to President Biden by about 85% to 15%, so it is less likely there’s a MAGA mole on the jury just based upon that statistic. Moreover, according to New York criminal procedures, the prosecution and defense had the same number of peremptory challenges (10, plus 2 more for each alternate selected) to remove jurors they didn’t like.
It is harder to cull from 85% than from 15%.
You end up running out of peremptory challenges a lot quicker when the pool of jurors is likely unfavorable to your side at the start. I suspect that locating a potential holdout would be a little easier than usual in a typical criminal trial.
They are the assholes with the smart mouths.
On top of that, I suspect that the typical trump voter would be more likely than others to get out of jury duty. (It’s what their hero did regarding Vietnam, you see). Or be unqualified for jury duty because of a prior conviction.
Even if there is a MAGA mole on the jury, I suspect New York jurors will be persuasive with any such holdout.
Finally, if the jurors are hung on one or more of the charges, Justice Juan Merchan will almost certainly direct them to go back into the jury room and reach a verdict on that, or those, remaining undecided counts. It’s called an “Allen” or “Dynamite” charge, and that would give the jurors more time to work on the holdout.
THE JURY INSTRUCTIONS
The Jury Instructions will be very, very long. Since there has to be a description of the elements for all of the crimes—and each count has to show the crime of falsification of a particular document and another dependent crime—as well as the basic instructions about hearsay, presumption of innocence, credibility of witnesses, the defendant didn’t testify, beyond a reasonable doubt, &tc., that will be a massive stack of papers.
The verdict forms will be voluminous as well. In the cases that I tried to a jury, each count would have a separate page, with blanks for “Guilty” and “Not Guilty” at the bottom, which means that there will likely be at least 34 separate pages for that. It doesn’t have to be like that, but it’s just easier for judges and lawyers to make changes that way, so that’s how it is done.
According to New York procedure, the Judge or Clerk will read all of the Jury Instructions and Verdict Forms before they go back to the jury room to deliberate, but it will be soooo long, they’ll want to read it themselves in the jury room.
As of May 6, there had already been 9 witnesses and 120 exhibits. Now, those numbers haven’t grown that much larger because Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen took up long chunks of time, and many of the exhibits they testified about were introduced by other witnesses, but still, jurors will likely want to sift through that stack of documents and go over what each witness said.
During closing arguments, both the prosecution and defense will reference specific exhibits by their numbers and ask the jury to pull them out of the stack and look at them back in the jury room. You’re hoping that your juror, the one who will be a leader in the room, is taking notes and will pull out those exhibits and carefully go over them.
My speculation is that that’s a day’s worth of work before they even start to fill out the blanks. I do not think there will be a verdict that first day. Jurors do take their time and will do a thorough job. Moreover, as much as the fuckpudding doesn’t deserve it, the jurors will likely give the Office of the President the respect of a thorough deliberation.
THE DELIBERATIONS
I think the jury finds him guilty, and that deliberations will take more than a day.
THE ORANGE TRAITOR FUCKPUDDING TESTIFYING
I was in a vast minority of opinions among my peers regarding whether or not to have a client testify. For me, it was always, yes, you should testify. That is, unless my client was a very poor speaker or the case against her or him was unusually thin, and I never encountered a case like that.
In the present situation, we not only have legal, but also political considerations involved. The orange yam has said on multiple occasions that he would testify. Now, he is backing out of that like the coward he is.
The final decision is his and his alone.
Don’t buy the “my lawyer advised me not to testify” bullshit. It was only one person’s decision. In the end, I think that a ‘uge legal and political mistake was made by Blanche and the rest of his team. According to New York criminal procedure,
Cross-examination of a witness should ordinarily be limited to the subject matter of the direct examination and matters affecting credibility….
You put the orange traitor fuckwit on the stand and ask him one question: Did you sleep with Stormy Daniels. He lies and answers, “No,” and you have at least done something to deal with your criminal and political problems.
Sure, the state can come back with the Access Hollywood tape and perhaps even questions about E. Jean Carroll, but Justice Merchan and the prosecutors would have to be worried about over-stepping and introducing reversible error.
As it is, MAGA will have to deal with this:
AL CAPONE
Another famous defendant also failed to take the witness stand. In his trial for tax evasion, Al Capone did not testify. His defense lasted only one day. The defense in the instant case might be even shorter than that.
And we all know what happened to Capone.
THE APPEALS
From what I’ve read, each appellate layer in New York usually takes about 6 months to complete. That sounds highly optimistic to me, but I have to rely on the experience of others for that. So, even given the urgent nature of the appeals, you have to think it will be at least a year before all of the appeals are exhausted.
The defendant is given x number of days to file an appeal, then the State will have x number of days to respond, then further responses and then usually a hearing of the appeal. In this case, x usually = 30.
SENTENCING
I’ve been pondering this question for some time now, and I have my own theory, which is entirely speculative, replete with wishful thinking and over-loaded with starry-eyed optimism. So, with that said here goes:
Upon a guilty verdict, the Judge will set a hearing in about a month so that there is time for a pre-sentencing report, which will provide factors in mitigation and aggravation. At the sentencing hearing, the Judge will sentence the defendant according to the terms of the criminal statute.
The general rule I have seen is that a first offense that doesn’t involve death or great bodily harm usually gets the lowest possible sentence or probation. That’s what I call the One Bite of the Apple Rule. (NOTE: This does not always apply to African-Americans because of racism).
However, in this case, the Jury could find that the defendant committed 34 felonies. A conviction like that is more likely to get a prison sentence. Moreover, in this case, the stupid defendant has attacked the Judge and the Judge’s daughter.
What I think may be telling is what the Judge does with the defendant’s latest violation of the gag order. The defendant recently violated the gag order on Thursday, and the Judge had previously threatened him with jail time if he did it again. My speculation is this: If the Judge gives him another fine, then that might be because he is leaning towards an actual prison sentence and not just house arrest and probation.
If the Judge puts him in jail for a day or two, that might mean he will later sentence the defendant to probation, house arrest, fines, but no prison. Just a guess on my part.
Of further interest—if we are to count our chickens at this time—is the Florida law for convicted felons. It provides:
CAN FELONS VOTE IN FLORIDA?
If you are convicted of a felony not of moral turpitude, you lose your right to vote, until the following conditions are met:
- You have completed your sentence, including probation, parole.
- Full payment of all restitution, fines, and other fees. Note: This requirement is subject to change, please see Next Steps if you have outstanding fees.
A felony conviction in another state makes a person ineligible to vote in Florida only if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the state where the person was convicted.
That last paragraph hinges on New York law, which provides:
A new law passed in 2021, [which] restores the right to vote for a person convicted of a felony upon release from incarceration, regardless of if they are on parole or have a term of post-release supervision. If a convicted felon is not incarcerated, they are eligible to register to vote.
So, the defendant would have to be incarcerated in New York to lose his right to vote in Florida. I doubt that he will be incarcerated by then because of appeals, but Fingers crossed.
