It seems that this trial is going ahead on April 25, as Trump’s lawyers attempts to delay it have been quashed by the judge:
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan said the civil trial on claims against Trump by a longtime columnist, E. Jean Carroll, will begin as scheduled on April 25.
As I understand it, the initial lawsuit by Carroll was for defamation, based on remarks Trump made against her. She then upgraded the lawsuit in November last year, accusing him of rape, after New York State’s Adult Survivor’s Act temporarily lifted the state’s usual deadlines for suing over sexual assault.
This thread is for discussion of the upcoming trial, and current events when the trial is underway.
Back in Oct 2022 (before she amended the lawsuit), and according to Forbes, she was asking for:
an unspecified amount of monetary damages, which would be determined at trial, and for the court to order Trump to retract his allegedly defamatory statements.
Agreed. At this point in her life, being “the person who stopped Trump from being US Dictator for Life starting in 2024” would be praise and accomplishment enough.
As I understand it, it’s not a “rape” trial. It’s a defamation and battery case.
So she’s suing Trump for lying about not having anything to do with her because she’s “not my type”.
(Problem is, during depositions, when shown a picture of Carroll from the time this allegedly happened, he thought it was his former wife, Marla Maples)
It’s absurd that he was acting in his capacity as POTUS when he defamed her by calling her a liar. Was he acting in his capacity as POTUS when he scratched his balls?
While overseeing defamation litigation brought by E. Jean Carroll, Kaplan responded to Tacopina’s request for details about selecting an anonymous jury. The attorney argued that he should be allowed to observe “all stages” of the selection process.
Kaplan slammed the Trump attorney for missing a meeting where jury selection was discussed.
It seems to say that there was a period for discovery and since Trump didn’t volunteer to submit his DNA during that period, they’re just going to move on and have the trial, without any penalty. Carrol’s lawyers won’t even be allowed to mention that Trump refused the discovery request, during the trial.
Likewise, I found it strange in the Dominion case that they determined that Fox had been non-forthcoming during discovery and yet the judge decided to go straight to trial, without sending some guys in to look through Fox’s stuff. (Though, there, it sounded like the judge was thinking about assigning someone to investigate the lawyers for infractions, as a separate process.)
This feels like a pretty strange gap in the legal process, even if it is a civil trial. You’d think that the judges would be empowered to make people pay for shenanigans.
Trump’s lawyer must have known the judge would say it was too late. Sounds to me that he’s hoping a juror will have heard that Trump offered to submit his DNA and conclude it means Trump didn’t do it.
But I don’t see how you can give a lawyer a penalty for that.
The vast majority of Trump’s actions as president consisted of telling self serving lies to cover his ass. This was a self serving lie, to cover his ass, therefor it was a presidential action Q.E.D.
The judge appointed a special master to investigate if Fox met their discovery obligations on Tuesday morning. Fox settled Tuesday afternoon. Possibly completely unrelated events.
But if Fox and Dominion come to a meeting of the minds on a settlement, that’s that. No need for a special master anymore.
On the other hand, why would there be a penalty for not “volunteering” something? A person’s DNA isn’t a form you have in a filing cabinet that you can just scan and put in an email. If it was, he’d have to turn it over and he could be sanctioned for objecting without a basis. But a scientific expert has to do a kind of invasive little procedure and then do some science and produce a report and that’s what we mean by your “DNA.” It’s the kind of thing you would have to ask the court to compel the other party to do.
Carroll didn’t do that in this case, she just asked. Trump objected and said you aren’t going to be able to compel me to do that. Then there was no motion to compel.
It’s definitely all delay tactics, but you can’t just go around penalizing everyone who objects to being asked to volunteer their DNA.
Which I mentioned. But, to our knowledge, the judge didn’t do so in the Carroll case, so it’s still a bit mysterious. From what I can tell of New York State law, the lawyers can accuse the other side of contempt of court, in a civil trial. Why, for example, didn’t they? Or is there reason to believe that they were charged with contempt and that simply hasn’t leaked to the public?
That’s after the judge decided to go to trial. Why would you go to trial, having reasonable evidence that one side has illicitly taken some action that has the potential to corrupt the result of the trial? What’s the purpose of going forward with that trial?
I don’t believe that I said that the system doesn’t work like this. I said that it’s unclear to me what the rationale is for it. It could be as simple as saying something like, “If the judge thinks that party acting in bad faith is liable to lose their case, anyways, then they might as well let the case go forward to trial. And, should the bad party end up prevailing then, once the contempt cases and special masters demonstrate that the bad party was bad, a new case can be submitted that takes those matters into account.” I’m not saying that there can’t be a logical reason for this outcome, I’m simply asking what the logic is that underlies it.
Fox withheld evidence. That evidence came to light. Fox was being sanctioned for withholding it. Then they settled.
We don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t settled. Maybe at a certain point there would have been a motion for sanctions that included adverse inferences against Fox, and maybe the judge would have granted them. Maybe there was an understanding that such a motion would have been filed, but that was taken into account in the settlement discussions.
The only specific flaw in the system you identified is that they weren’t sending someone in to look at Fox’s stuff. But they were doing that. So the only question left really is why the case went forward instead of waiting on the special master. Presumably the answer to that is that the plaintiff didn’t ask for it, and presumably the reason they didn’t ask for it is because settlement was imminent.