Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 1
Fulton County Case Motions to Sever (Sept 12, 2030)
*Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro are set to be tried together starting Oct 23, 2023
*Mark Meadows does not want to be tried alongside anyone.
*Donald J. Trump, John Eastman, Shawn Still, David Schefer, Jeff Clark, and Robert Cheeley do not want to be tried alongside Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell.
*Scott Hall does not want to be tried alongside anyone who requests a speedy trial, and wants to sever his cases from 'any aspects of the State's case that took place outside Coffee County, Georgia.
*Trevian Kutti does not 'want to be included in a speedy trial.' But says she cannot evaluate the merits of any potential severance motions until she receives discovery on September 15, 2023.
*Ray Smith would like the judge to divide the defendants into 'manageable groups' for trial.
*Harrison Floyd wants to be tried alongside Trevian Kutti and Stephen Lee, but no one else.
*Stephen Lee, Cathy Latham, Jenna Ellis, Misty Hampton, and Mike Ronan have not filed motions to sever.
No. of Recommendations: 7
I've been pondering this over the last couple of days.
When you sign on to any part of a criminal conspiracy, you never know how many other actors are participating who could wind up co-defendents, in either a traditional "one crime at a time" criminal trial or a racketeering oriented criminal trial ("individual crimes" + conspiracy over time to plan / commit crimes). If you're goin to enter a conspiracy, you better choose your co-conspirators carefully or don't complain about who shows up in the dock with you at trial.
When you get indicted, you have the right to defend yourself in court. You have the right to a speedy trial so you don't rot in jail for five years waiting for a trial for which you may be acquitted. You have the right to select your own counsel or if you are impoverished, you have the right to a public defender providing competent defense counsel.
But this shouldn't mean you get the right to flood the court with obviously frivoulous "motions", each requring days / weeks of back and forth between prosecutors, defenders and the judge. You shouldn't have the right to file motions at the last minute about issues that if legitimmate should have been raised on Day One. (Like Trump suddenly demanding his DC judge resign 42 days after indictment for comments she made two years ago that were available to the defendant 42 days ago.) Dozens of co-defendents absolutely do not have a blanket right to demand to be INDIVIDUALLY tried for a crime which BY ITS NATURE involved voluntary coordination AMONG defendants which must be proved in front of jurors. Doing so would reqire the state to waste resources arguing the same facts NINETEEN times in front of NINETEEN different juries of twelve people, requiring enormous effort to FIND suitable jurors and requring the state to WASTE the time of 19 x 12 jurors over facts which should only need to be presented once.
Allowing this charade to continue would set an incentive for criminals to simply scale up their conspiracies then paralyze the state or federal justice system with the sheer number of defendants, alleged crimes and actions to defer justice nearly indefinitely.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 3
But this shouldn't mean you get the right to flood the court with obviously frivolous "motions", each requiring days / weeks of back and forth between prosecutors, defenders and the judge.
Yes, it does.
This may seem like it's unusual for folks who don't ever get much of a peak into pre-trial motion practice. But it's not. There's a reason why many criminal cases can take many months, and sometimes years, from indictment to get to trial. It's because there's commonly lots of disputes between the state and the defendants over a host of issues, from process to discovery to admissibility of evidence to disputed points of law. All of those things have to get sorted out by the judge. To use some famous examples, Elizabeth Holmes was initially indicted in 2018, there was a superseding indictment in July 2020, and her trial didn't start until August 2021. Martha Stewart's indictment was issued in June of 2003, and she didn't go to trial until March of the following year. Ken Lay (of Enron) was indicted in July 2004, and didn't go on trial until January 2006.
These are perfectly ordinary and common things for defendants who are represented by counsel to ask for. They will file motions asking for every possible procedural and substantive choice by the judge be made most favorably for their client. That doesn't mean that they'll get everything they ask for, of course. But there's nothing wrong, or even that uncommon, in them filing all these motions - and it doesn't mean they're frivolous. In fact, unlike the sometimes petty disputes that can arise in litigation, questions about the timing and co-defendants in a trial can have a huge impact on the outcome - so it's both natural and appropriate that there's a flurry of early pre-trial activity on that issue.
No. of Recommendations: 3
....and it doesn't mean they're frivolous
But sometimes they are spurious, frivolous and judges resent the crap out of them.
Judges get annoyed when an attorney is clearly playing for time, as is Trump's M.O., and they get really annoyed when a lame-ass attorney -and there are plenty of them out there- submits a groundless motion that is obviously the product of ignorance, carelessness, or outright dishonesty.
(A few of my relatives are attys. Some of the stories they tell make one wonder how some people ever passed BAR exams.)
No. of Recommendations: 10
I don't have any complaint about cases where counsel is seeking a ruling based upon poorly written state or federal law, something that is highly likely given the lack of legal expertise among elected Senators and Representatives across the country. I've seen numerous cases where the law as written and interpreted by anyone with an eighth grade understanding of grammar contained logical inconsistencies raising questions about the actual intent of the law or the penalties proscribed. There are many cases where motions are warranted due to suspected mis-handling or withholding of exculpatory evidence on the part of prosecutors or police.
In the case of Trump, it seems 90 percent of the actions are purely aimed at burning the clock and wasting the judge's time, which means the motions are PURELY delaying justice. Trump's argument that the DC judge should recuse herself for having made comments in prior trials is a good example. Trump's attorneys stated she should recuse herself because in a sentencing hearing of a case involving January 6 events, she stated that the fact others who are also responsible for the insurrection were not yet facing justice was no argument for her to impose a lesser sentence on the convicted felon before her. Trump argued that statement reflected bias which could harm his case before the same judge. In reality, judges are REQUIRED to explain their rationale for sentencing so such comments are completely in line with their normal professional conduct. The prosecution knows this and Trump's attorneys likely know this. The public may not understand it but for the judge to spend a DAY on responding to the motion is a complete waste of time. In other motions, the arguments submitted by the defendents' counsel border on bad faith on the part of counsel, who are obligated to represent their client vigorously but are also officers of the court with an obligation to upholding the integrity of the court's operation as well.
To the extent that these tactics succeed in delaying justice, they reflect a bias towards the wealthy who can hire a team of attorneys (or convince a bunch of D-list attorneys to eventually work without pay as with Trump) and stretch the case out while a poor defendent who cannot afford the legal fees is more immediately subjected to trial and likely punishment.
WTH
No. of Recommendations: 2
Trump's argument that the DC judge should recuse herself for having made comments in prior trials is a good example.
I don't think so. I think that Trump's attorneys would be committing malpractice if they didn't move to recuse her.
You're correct that judges are required to explain their rationale for sentencing. That happens all the time. But it is unusual for a judge to make comments about an individual in the sentencing phase of one case, and then be the judge presiding over the trial of that individual in their own criminal case on substantially the same subject matter.
It's impossible for Trump to draw a judge that is unaware of who he is or the broad strokes of what he's accused of - he's one of the most public figures there is, and this is one of the most publicly-known events in the last several years. But it's not impossible for him to draw a judge who hasn't already had some of those facts and circumstances actually litigated in her courtroom, or who wasn't already forced to draw conclusions of fact and law from the evidence presented to her in a proceeding that Trump wasn't allowed to participate in.
The judge certainly won't recuse herself - but it's not a frivolous argument, nor is it likely that his lawyers filed it because they expected it would delay (at all) this proceeding. They might not have a great chance of winning on that point on appeal (it's a tough standard) - but it's not a non-zero chance, given how unusual these circumstances are.
No. of Recommendations: 0
The judge certainly won't recuse herself - but it's not a frivolous argument, nor is it likely that his lawyers filed it because they expected it would delay (at all) this proceeding. They might not have a great chance of winning on that point on appeal (it's a tough standard) - but it's not a non-zero chance, given how unusual these circumstances are.
But it would be legit grounds for appeal, yes? In which case I would think the prosecutors would want her to recuse also. I would think they wouldn't want even a chance for an appeal to get granted on some procedural thing.
No. of Recommendations: 2
But it would be legit grounds for appeal, yes? In which case I would think the prosecutors would want her to recuse also. I would think they wouldn't want even a chance for an appeal to get granted on some procedural thing.
There are always grounds for appeal. No trial ever goes absolutely perfectly. Prosecutors always have to take that risk.
Trump's argument has enough of a basis not to be frivolous - even enough that it would be expected that counsel would at least try to get a recusal in hopes of drawing a better judge. But I don't think it's anywhere strong enough that prosecutors would concede the point.
