He’ll appeal and then put on his defense, which he intentionally held back.
The testimony of any witness is suffice to prove any point of believed by the jury. The appellate court does NOT weigh the evidence. The starting point of the appellate analysis begins with the principle that the judgment is presumed to be correct and legal error by the trial court has to be affirmatively shown.
I know there are some concerns regarding interim rulings by the judge, but I can’t say I’ve studied the case and know what they are. That the jury did not find liability on the most serious allegation sets this judgment in concert. It will not be disturbed on appeal
Damn the media. In all the years I’ve paid attention never once have I heard media explain just how tough a road appeal is. I think the general population thinks an appeal is just a chance for a mulligan.
Nothing could be farther from accurate. If appealed,
I’d bet ten thousand bucks this verdict gets upheld
Why would anyone save their defense for an appeal, especially if it’s the case that new evidence can’t be introduced in an appeal, as the other poster said. That makes no sense. If his defense was good why didn’t he use it now?
Your theory runs counter to the legal maxim that you cannot complain of an error you intentionally committed.
That’s not how an appeal works. The trial court is the venue that hears and determines facts. You can’t just hold back testimony during the trial and expect to present it to the appellate court. They don’t do that. The appellate court (generally, with some very limited exceptions) only looks at whether the trial court correctly applied the law. An appellate hearing doesn’t look anything like the trial. There’s no witness stand and no witnesses. It’s just the opposing attorneys making legal arguments before a panel of judges, with the losing side arguing why the trial court made some fundamental legal error and the winning side trying to refute the loser’s argument by explaining why the trial court did not err..
Now if the trial court did make a significant legal error, then there’s hope. Who knows in this case, but it seems to me that what the New York legislature did by just arbitrarily opening up a new one-year window for all kinds of screwed-up women to make unsubstantiated, decades-old allegations against men they hate should be unconstitutional. It seems like a gross miscarriage of justice to enable one person to accuse another of something, so long after the alleged incident that there is nothing but rank speculation that can be offered as “evidence”, and to not even require the plaintiff to demonstrate any actual injury. My suspicion, though, is that if the law is unconstitutional it is something they the trial and appellate courts cannot change, and would require an appeal to the state Supreme Court or more likely a lawsuit against the State of New York.
Those are just my very non-lawyer thoughts.
You can’t bring up new facts on an appeal.
Unless a new trial is ordered an appeal works from the record of the trial court and no be evidence is considered. The appeal is to determine if there were errors as a matter of law.
As this is a civil case the standard is a preponderance of the evidence. By trunk not putting on a defense the preponderance of the evidence by definition favored the petitioner. It is unclear to me why Trump failed to put on a defense. His expert pulling out was a bit surprising. Additionally I wonder if his calculus was not to take the stand as it may hurt him in other cases.
In either event regardless of the actual truth, this verdict and Trumps on again off again testimony is not particularly great optics. The truth is not particularly important in politics. The appearance here — being found liable for sexual abuse and battery will drive a wedge much further between him and the suburban women demographic. This will reduce his chances of winning a general election.