No. of Recommendations: 3
Bob breaks into his ex-girlfriend's apartment one night. She's home, and scares him off with a loaded gun. Bob is charged with burglary, which is defined as the "unlawful breaking and entering into the dwelling place of another at night with intent to commit a crime therein." Bob was observed earlier in a bar saying he was going to break into his girlfriend's apartment and either steal all her stuff or maybe rough her up a bit - he'll see what he felt like. - albaby
---------------------
I think that is a flawed analogy because there is an essential temporal component that is different.
Bob can be charged with burglary period. Whether or not he was going to steal or rough her up does not affect whether he can be prosecuted for burglary. Even if he said nothing in the bar, he can still be charged with burglary so that is what makes those secondary assertions irrelevant to being able to charge the burglary.
With Trump, he cannot be charged with falsifying business records because of the Statute of Limitations. He can only be charged with falsification of business records, if and only if, he is guilty of a separate crime that defeats the SOL. It seems only fair in Trumps case that the separate crime would first have to identified and proven in order for the trial to proceed. The dependency on guilt in a secondary crime is what makes Trumps case different that Bob's hypothetical burglary.
