“True, but he was found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation...
So if the dress story is a lie, does the original go away, along with the second accusation?
Just wondering...”
The general rule is that you can’t retry a case you lost just because you have a new idea about how you might win it.
There’s an exception for newly discovered evidence. The disgruntled litigant must show that the evidence wasn’t available before, despite diligent efforts to obtain it, and that it’s important enough that it could change the prior outcome.
I don’t see how Trump could meet that standard. Presumably, what’s happened here is that someone looked at the dress Carroll said she wore, looked also at publicly available information about when Donna Karan issued various dresses, and concluded that this would undercut Carroll’s story. But all of that could have been done for the first trial.
Trump’s bigger problem is that he didn’t testify the first time. He’s said he got bad legal advice, and I agree with him, but that’s not a basis for reopening the question whether he did assault her. He had his chance to present his evidence and the jury found against him.
Trump’s other problem is the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The jury’s finding in the first case is binding in the second case. That’s why Trump can’t now decide to testify that he didn’t do it, nor can he now bring in this argument about the dress.
Makes sense...thanks.