Posted on 06/25/2024 9:17:23 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) delivered two precedent-setting rulings that could significantly impact former President Donald Trump’s criminal convictions.
In a decisive 6-3 decision in the Erlinger vs United States case, the Supreme Court ruled that juries must be unanimous on each criminal count, a standard not met in Trump’s New York case, where the jury returned a 4-4-4 verdict on the underlying crime.
This ruling underlines that Trump’s conviction was unconstitutional and must be overturned. During Trump’s New York trial, the judge had instructed the jury that unanimity on the specific crimes was unnecessary, as long as they agreed that a crime had taken place.
Additionally, SCOTUS ruled that sentencing enhancements cannot be arbitrarily implemented by judicial fiat, further solidifying the protections against unjust legal procedures.
These rulings have profound implications for Trump’s legal battles, particularly the controversial case led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the bogus J6 1512(c) charges and sentencing enhancements that corrupt federal judges have announced they will implement if the Supreme Court nukes 1512(c).
The Supreme Court’s decisions underscore the necessity for unanimous jury verdicts in criminal convictions and proper judicial processes in sentencing enhancements, casting doubt on the validity of current and future proceedings against Trump.
“Naw, i’m good. I read it on Free Republic, so it’s got to be right.”
You read on FR that it was unanimous so it had to be right.
Great news, for a change!
this is garbage clickbait from a garbage website of the worst sort ...
the sole question before SCOTUS was whether the multiple crimes committed by Erlinger during a crime spree one night when he was a kid counted as one crime or as multiple crimes towards a sentence enhancement for his current crime conviction, AND whethe aa JURY had to decide that question and had to decide it unanimously, neither of which had been done ...
SCOTUS ruled that a jury had to decide, AND decide unanimously, whether multiple-crimes or one crime had been done for the purposes of sentence enhancement ...
this was a very narrow ruling and it’s unclear how much, if any, this decision would have on Trump’s circumstances ...
here’s a bona fide discussion of the case:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/602/23-370/
rather than garbage clickbait from a garbage website ...
I read that it wasn't. They all picked different reasons for which they thought he had committed some sort of crime.
Total crap shoot.
“The underlying crime was not one of the counts.”
‘But doesn’t this ruling say it HAS to be, and he has to be fully convicted of it,in order to “enhance” the others?’
That’s indeed the way I read it but doesn’t mean that’s the way the Appeals court will read it......Especially a NY Appeals court.
Praise the LORD!
“But doesn’t this ruling say it HAS to be, and he has to be fully convicted of it,in order to “enhance” the others?”
The decision concerned enhanced penalties in the sentencing phase. Felon was not challenging the convictions.
Trump has not been sentenced.
“This was decided last week. How was this not front page news?”
We discussed the ramifications of this decision on the Trump case in the SCOTUS thread from last Friday. A SCOTUS thread will be started tomorrow morning at around 9:30 to discuss the opinions to be released beginning at 10:00 a.m.
If you want to be added to the SCOTUS ping list, let me know. Or, just click the SCOTUS keyword at the top of the FR forum front page.
This is the sort of thing you would think would be self evident.
Do prosecutors not know how to distinguish between one crime and multiple crimes? Does someone need to give them remedial training regarding how to tell the difference between one crime and multiple crimes?
The legal system would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.
“I read that it wasn’t. They all picked different reasons for which they thought he had committed some sort of crime.”
You read that their guilty verdicts were unanimous on all 34 counts.
No I didn't. I read that they made up stupid bullshit that they couldn't even all agree on to pretend Trump had committed some sort of crime.
“I read ... “
I read that you didn’t read that.
The gag order needs to be addressed as well.
the ruling was released last Thurs or Fri and WILL be used by DJT’s legal team in the appeal of the NY bragg case which was a total sham. SCOTUS ruled juries must be unanimous and in the NY case, they were not.
Some justice still remains...
The short answer is no.
Generally speaking, selective prosecution is unconstitutional under the 14th amendment's "equal protection" clause. To prove selective prosecution, a defendant must demonstrate that they have been singled out for prosecution via "impermissible factors" while others in similar cases have not been prosecuted.
These "impermissible factors" are the usual things we find in HR:
To give a jury instruction that says you can consider that the defendant is black (or gay) when white (or straight) people in similar situations would not be prosecuted would be illegal.
It seems logical to me to assume that the jury instructions should be in accordance with the law. I’m just trying to understand the thinking here. I don’t think anything will happen to benefit Trump from a legal perspective so long as he’s not President.
This suggests a different question altogether.
I (and Craig) were addressing the false statement that the jury instructions included the "4-4-4" example, which it did not; that came from the media as a glib way of explaining the instructions.
That said, the jury instructions told the members of the jury that they had to be unanimous on each count (which is correct), but this was a "novel" charge that's never in history been made before.
The charge of "fraudulent documentation in furtherance of another crime" is usually meant to cover things like money laundering or structuring (sequencing a large payment into a series of smaller payments to bypass banking regulations) where some other crime occurred (like illegal drug sales or insider trading) and the records were altered or faked to cover up the underlying crime. In these cases, the underlying crime is also prosecuted and both the major crime and the records crimes are bundled together.
This is not what happened in President Trump's case. In Bragg's prosecution, he never specified what the underlying crime was; he was vague and evasive about it all throughout the prosecution and defense, and only suggested three possible underlying crimes during the closing arguments well after the defense would have a chance to put up a rebuttal or defense of the charges.
Where the jury instructions run afoul of the law is when Merchan told the jury that they didn't have to agree on the underlying crime but they had to agree that the records were falsified to cover up "some" crime. This is where the "4-4-4" came from, the media suggestion that 1/3rd of the jury could think it was Bragg's first suggestion, 1/3rd believed the second, and the last third believed the third, but they were all unanimous that the records were falsified. This is obviously absurd. Merchan compounded the instruction by saying that the jury didn't even have to prove the underlying crime or decide if Trump even carried out the crime or intended to commit the crime!
Where the headline of this article may be misleading is that Merchan can say that he DID instruct the jury that they had to be unanimous on EACH charge, but the indictments only specified the specific banking transactions that the city alleged were fraudulent. The indictments did not mention anything about an underlying crime; that language came from the state law that Bragg used to revive the fraudulent records misdemeanor that had passed its statute of limitations several years ago (that "novel" part).
So, Bragg used a state law that required an underlying crime as the reason for falsifying business records, but only indicted Trump for falsifying business records. Without an underlying crime, charging those business records are illegal because the transactions occurred too long ago. Bragg created a circular argument that the records were falsified to cover up another crime, and that because there was another crime the records must have been falsified. But he never stated nor charged Trump with the other crime.
So I don't think this ruling does what the author of the article thinks it does.
-PJ
Have we pushed back hard enough yet?
Dick, these are terrific videos you put together. My favorite is:
NOWHERE TO HIDE IF AMERICA IS LOST!
(5 MINUTES) https://youtu.be/dqw7kXG0kxU
I like your story-telling appeal to reason in the face of tyranny. I think it’s more effective than a rant of Leftist crimes, though that approach can sometimes wake people up from their slumber.
Your dramatic escapes from tyranny are powerful. WELL DONE!
TaDa
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