He failed to appear at his hearing today. That did not go well. A reminder that Mr Giuliani has been found liable in this case. The amount of of damages is what will be determined in the juried trial.
His lawyer said Giuliani would testify in his own defense, but he didn’t know if Giuliani would invoke his Fifth Amendment rights on the stand.
I thought you couldn’t pick and choose; if you choose to testify, you can’t tailor your testimony be pleading the 5th?
And if Giuliani doesn’t comply, well, the judge will chastise him again.
And maybe even again!
Totally not a lawyer but my understanding is that a witness can do this, but not a defendant.
I thought that once a particular line of questioning is conducted by the defense, the door is now open and can’t be closed by invoking the Fifth. So, a particular line of questioning could be shut down at the start by invoking the Fifth, while still answering other lines. But the defense can’t enjoy the benefit of certain areas of questioning while shutting those topics down for the prosecution via the Fifth.
Not a lawyer, but I have watched a lot of “Law and Order.” 
Is there a penalty to him for not showing up?
I always thought that for normal people in normal trials the judge will issue a bench warrent for people who didn’t show up for court when they were supposed to. Then the sherrif would show it to you when they found you and hauled you of to appear before the judge.
Criminal matters, yes. In the system I’m used to in Canada, the court needs to issue a bench warrant for an accused who doesn’t show up, in order to preserve the court’s jurisdiction over the accused.
Not so common for civil matters, because there isn’t the same need to preserve jurisdiction; jurisdiction is preserved whether or not the person shows up, but the court can begin to draw adverse inferences from non-attendance.
But, I don’t know if that’s how it works in US federal courts, so take the above comments on advisement. 
“On the Straight Dope Message Board, the comments are made by two different yet equally vocal groups. The lawyers who have actual legal expertise and the others who have just watched lawyers on TV. These are their posts.”
CHUNG CHUNG
Dick Wolf in da’ house!
Listen, they couldn’t put it on TV if it wasn’t true, same as the Internet.
How does that work? Do all of the jurors have to agree on the amount, maybe 10 of 12 as in a civil trial? Do they take an average of their amounts, $5,000,000 if half want to award $10-mil and half $1?
I’m guessing Giuliani is finding out “but what if I don’t” doesn’t work any more. Shoulda talked to Alex Jones.
In federal court civil trials, there are a minimum of 6 jurors and usually 7 or 8. It has to be unanimous.
They’re not supposed to average. But they have a lot of discretion about how they reach the ultimate amount.
Very minor nitpick, the average of 10 million and 1 million is 5.5 million, (10 + 1) / 2 = 5.5
Nittier pick - the average of ten million and one (not ten million and one million), is 5 million plus 50 cents.
Ack, where’s my fast forward button. (I like L&O, but hate the intro)
There are 2 types of “pleading the fifth”.
The first applies to criminal cases. The defendant can invoke the 5th amendment by choosing not to testify. But, if they waive that right and do take the stand, they can’t pick and choose which questions to answer.
The second applies to civil cases. In a civil case, there is no fifth amendment right to decline to testify. However, when subpoenaed to testify, a witness can invoke the 5th amendment to specific questions (with the consequence that the finder of fact in the civil trial can draw an adverse inference from the refusal to answer).
Also, in a criminal case, the judge will explicitly charge the jury that the defendant declining to take the stand does not allow them to draw any adverse conclusions from that silence; it is not an indication of guilt.
Whereas in a civil trial, as Moriarty points out, an adverse inference can explicitly be drawn.
A wrinkle on that is that if a party in a civil suit has their pretrial deposition taken, that party can invoke the Fifth if they believe answering might subject them to criminal prosecution. There, though, if they answer on any part of a particular line of questioning, they can’t then invoke the Fifth on further questioning along that line.
I’ve proofread deposition transcripts where the deponent wouldn’t answer anything beyond stating their name. The taking attorney would then go through the outline of their questions, get a more or less full recitation of “Taking the Fifth” each time, to make a record.
Correct. I rounded down. I figured the five Trumpies couldn’t find G. innocent, just setting the penalty so they gave the minimum possible, one dollar, not one million.