Free Republic

April 16 (UPI) -- The second day of Donald Trump's trial over alleged hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels got underway Tuesday in New York. Jury selection continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon in a Manhattan courtroom for the hush-money trial in which the former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges. According to reports, in the early afternoon Trump signed a form to waive his own right to be present at sidebars -- which are meetings between legal teams of both the prosecution and defense to discuss non-public issues in the case....

A man who leaped over a judicial bench and attacked a Nevada judge during a sentencing hearing in Las Vegas last month that was captured in a courtroom video that went viral has now been indicted for attempted murder. A grand jury returned the nine-count indictment against Deobra Redden, 30, in Las Vegas on Thursday. His arraignment is scheduled for Feb. 29. Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was about to deliver Redden’s sentence in an attempted battery case on Jan. 3 when he lunged over the bench at her. Courtroom cameras recorded as Holthus’ clerk and a...

Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she absolutely trusted the jury’s $83 million verdict for E. Jean Carroll in her case against former President Donald Trump. Anchor Kristen Welker said, “Let’s talk about the court cases. On Friday, a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages for defamation. This was a year after a different jury found him liable for sexual abuse. You have said, and you repeated here, maybe it’s fair, maybe it’s not. Let me just ask you, on the substance...

Filling out my online jury summons. Not making this up. To serve as a juror with King County Superior Court you must be: 18+ years old; U.S. citizen; King County resident; Able to communicate in English or Sign Language; """If you have been convicted of a felony you are unable to serve as a juror if you are currently incarcerated."""

A federal jury reached an impasse on Thursday in a civil rights case against a police officer involved in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death in 2020, forcing a mistrial. After nearly a week of deliberation, the jury could not agree on whether to convict former officer Brett Hankison of using excessive force that violated the rights of Taylor, her boyfriend and their neighbors.

Former President Trump demanded a jury Monday after his unprecedented time on the stand, calling the civil trial against him and his businesses a "disgrace" and saying New York Attorney General Letitia James has "no case." Trump described his forced testimony as "election interference" while maintaining that his net worth is "far greater" than financial statements during testimony Monday. The former president and 2024 Republican presidential front-runner took the stand Monday morning in the non-jury civil trial stemming from James’ lawsuit against him, his family and his businesses. James alleged Trump defrauded banks and inflated the value of his assets....

Numerous defense attorneys representing January 6 defendants are perplexed in discovering that potential jurors are being recalled or “recycled.”On Sept. 5, a day after Labor Day, defense attorneys discovered their potential jury pool consisted of jurors who were excused the week before.“I have never seen this in all my years of practicing law.” defense attorney Steven Metcalf fumed while exiting the federal courthouse after jury selection of Zachary Alam’s trial.”Are there any jurors left in DC? What is going on here?” (snip) As Metcalf spoke to the approximate twentieth potential juror who confirmed they were at jury selection the week...

U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan says that former President Donald J. Trump may be said to have “raped” E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury specifically declined to find that he had done so in his recent civil trial in New York. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported the judge’s finding — approvingly, calling it a “clarification”: [Kaplan] says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood. The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against...

A handwritten document found stuffed in Aretha Franklin’s couch cushions is at the crux of a dispute over her multi-million dollar estate — with a Michigan jury seated Monday in the case tasked with deciding whether it’s a valid will. The panel was chosen to oversee the Oakland County Probate trial between the Queen of Soul’s sons Kecalf and Edward Franklin — who believe the 2014 document is valid — and their brother, Ted White II, aka Teddy Richards, who wants a handwritten from 2010 to be honored instead. Both documents were found in the “Respect” singer’s suburban Detroit home...

One of those little unexpected perks in life is being able, in our electronic age, to email well known, well regarded experts all over the world and, sometimes, if one is lucky, receive a reply. This writer has, over the years, exchanged emails with historians, investment bank officers, journalists, legal analysts, (he said, proudly) late former New York City mayor Ed Koch, and others. It was during one such correspondence, with a well known, well respected attorney and legal analyst, that I posited a problem I saw with the Trump documents case. I am keeping the analyst's name confidential. What...

Former President Donald Trump called the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape of himself “very old news” when questioned by lawyers for rape accuser E. Jean Carroll, according to a video of his deposition played in Manhattan federal court Thursday. The jury overseeing Carroll’s ongoing civil trial against Trump, 76, on Thursday morning heard — for the second time — the notorious recording of the 45th president saying he would grab women “by the p—y” and they let him because he’s a star.“This is very old news, fully litigated,” Trump told Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan at the Oct. 19, 2022 deposition,...

One of the things I often have to remind people about, including lawyers who should know better, is that each state has its own unique laws and procedures. What is no big deal in most places may be a fiasco in another. For Donald Trump, the upcoming New York "falsifying business records" charge he may be facing would be laughed out of court almost everywhere, as no money was stolen and no harm to anyone seems to have been done. Unfortunately for him, he is stuck in the Empire State. And as unfair as it sounds, I think Mr. Trump...

Anthony Cole, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official, said on Sunday that former President Trump’s remarks about his possible looming arrest in New York was an attempt to “intimidate local prosecutors” and would “poison” the jury pool. “What I think is happening here is [Trump] trying to, number one, intimidate local prosecutors and number two, I think it also has the effect of poisoning a jury pool,” Cole, who used to head the DOJ’s Department of Public Affairs, said in an interview with Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC.

This week the forewoman in the Georgia grand jury inquiry into President Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election made clear during several media interviews that the former president and his associates faced an absolutely biased jury.In a series of media interviews, 30-year-old Atlanta-area resident, Emily Kohrs, who served as the forewoman of the special grand jury for eight months, was giddy with excitement over the 'not short' list of indictment recommendations that would be handed down, and that there would be no "plot twist" when the public finally gets to see their findings - particularly regarding...

A jury on Friday found a FBI agent not guilty in connection with the shooting of a Metro train passenger in 2020 near Bethesda, Md. Eduardo Valdivia was riding a Red Line train near the Medical Center station on Dec. 15, 2020, when a man allegedly approached him and requested money. Valdivia denied the ask and a confrontation ensued. The man allegedly muttered expletives as he turned away from the agent. A video of the incident was released on Wednesday, showing Valdivia opening fire on the man from close range. The man stumbles and sits in a seat across from...

Jurors found Tesla negligent for deactivating a speed limiter that the Rileys had installed to keep their son Barrett from driving too fast. Barrett Riley was driving at 116 miles per hour (187 kph), on a curve with a posted 25 mph speed limit, on May 8, 2018, when he lost control of his 2014 Model S while trying to pass another vehicle... Another passenger also died while a third occupant survived. Though jurors found Barrett Riley 90% responsible and his father 9% responsible for the crash, it awarded James Riley $4.5 million and Jenny Riley $6 million. Riley's parents...

A jury decided that the driver responsible for a deadly 2017 Times Square rampage that killed a teenage tourist and injured others was not responsible for his actions because of mental illness. .....

As many as three donors to Hillary Clinton’s past presidential campaigns are members of the jury in the trial of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann in Washington, D.C., who faces the sole charge of lying to the FBI. Prosecutors working with Special Counsel John H. Durham content that Sussmann concealed his work for the campaign when passing along information to the FBI about an alleged link between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia, via Alfa Bank.

Jury Box in Judge Bruce Schroeder’s Courtroom(Photo by Kevin Mathewson, Kenosha County Eye) A woman over 50 who served as a juror in the Kyle Rittenhouse case spoke exclusively to Kenosha County Eye Monday night. We will call her Kimberly. Kimberly came across as genuine and kind. She kept all of her answers to our questions very positive. Kimberly told KCE many times times how proud she was of her fellow jurors. “I am very proud of our work. Justice prevailed.”“Judge Schroeder told us to put away everything we’ve heard and read about the case and decide only based on...

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lost her libel lawsuit against The New York Times on Tuesday when a jury rejected her claim that the newspaper maliciously damaged her reputation by erroneously linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. A judge had already declared that if the jury sided with Palin, he would set aside its verdict on the grounds that she hadn’t proven the paper acted maliciously, something required in libel suits involving public figures. Palin, a onetime Republican vice presidential nominee, sued the newspaper in 2017 claiming it had damaged her career as a...