There’s still lots of time for him to continue to decompensate!
FBI Search and Seizure at Trump's Mar-A-Lago Residence, August 8, 2022, Case Dismissed July 15, 2024
I agree about this judge, but I’d love to see that insane bastard take the stand. We would need cameras, or at least microphones in the room.
As opposed to his media-spokes-lawyer. Who can burble on about anything she pleases. I’d be willing to bet his actual lawyers don’t let her anywhere near the discovery material.
This brings up one of the reasons I no longer post that Trump will get off.
It doesn’t seem any actual highly competent lawyers are still willing to represent him. I’m sure Trump will continue to find lawyers willing to replace those who frequently quit. But will any of the new ones be actual normally skilled federal criminal defense lawyers?
One sign I am looking for is hiring of a jury consultant firm. Will any agree to take his case? If his own attorneys are responsible for the voir dire, his hung jury chances go down.
Having said all that, I think it is normal for an attorney trying the case in the press to say that their brave client would take the stand, even though it is not true.
It’s honestly amazing to me. The lawyer has a chance to make new law. It’s a once a…certainly a lifetime, but it’s more unprecedented than that. On some level, the type of lawyers who want to “make law” don’t really care about the Defendant, just the deeper principles involved - CIPA, Executive Powers, Constitutional Rights…all that is very much in play and will go to a conservative 11th Cir, and could easily get to the Supreme Court.
And still, with all that opportunity, crickets.
In order to do that, the lawyer first has to wrestle an unruly client into cooperative submission. Fail that, and ain’t no law getting made.
IANAL, but I watch lots of Law and Order ……
I believe the defense has to notify the court if they intend to pursue what is known as an affirmative defense, in which the defendant admits to committing the offense but had reasons. Two common affirmative defenses would be self-defense and mental disease of defect. I’m also pretty sure -lawyers, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. - that the judge has some say as to whether to allow a specific affirmative defense. For example, if Trump were to tell the court that his defense was that it was not illegal for him to possess the documents because he won the 2020 election and was the legitimate President, the judge could say “Hell No, none of that noise in my courtroom”. Which I hope would be Judge Cannon’s reaction.
Amazing to me too.
If I was a defense attorney, I would believe that morally terrible. obviously guilty, defendants deserve a competent defense. I even believe it not being a defense attorney.
And I would think, given that many criminal defendants are morally quite bad and generally obnoxious, a defense attorney commonly puts up with a lot.
Trump must be unusually obstreperous even among others of his type.
I imagine he backs them into a corner where they’re forced to either lie under oath or quit.
I disagree, when we’re talking about a current or former president of the US.
True, it’s small potatoes compared to his crimes — and true, we’ve known for years now that Trump writes and spells like the dumbest kid in a fourth-grade class — but that just shows how low we’ve come.
The flip side could be “Insurrection” to the tune of Lennon’s Isolation.
My understanding, from talking with colleagues at the bar who do criminal defence, is that normally the client is more than willing to shut up and not testify, if their defence lawyer advises them it’s in their best interests to do so. More generally, most accused rely on their defence lawyer because they assume the lawyer is in a better position to defend them than they are themselves.
We may be witnessing the counter-example here. If the accused won’t take their lawyer’s advice, there’s a good chance for a parting of the ways.
And since we know that is basically impossible here we can look forward to the inevitable moment when Donald Trump decides all on his own that it is his turn to speak and no one can stop him from doing so. I would absolutely hate to be sitting next to him when he does this. I think there is a 100% chance that at some point his mouth is going to get the best of him and he’s going to decide that now is the time to remind the court about Joe Biden or dead people voting or whatever his gripe of the day is and he’ll be able to get that complaint out much faster than his lawyers and/or the judge can possibly shut him up. Instructing the jury to disregard what he just said is only going to make him madder. I don’t know what typically happens to a defendant who won’t stop interrupting during a trial but I assume there is very low tolerance for this. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Trump does it and then immediately does it again after being warned not to.
A defendant who refuses to obey the judge’s order to pipe down can be removed from the courtroom, by force if necessary, and required to observe the ongoing proceedings via TV feed to another room. Just how that would be carried out with a defiant Trump, perhaps by his own SS cadre rather than the court officers, I cannot say.
Which happened to a number Jan 6 defendants after they either pitched an unhinged fit or went all sov cit in their defense and wouldn’t shut up about it.
My bold.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SleepyScaredIridescentshark-size_restricted.gif
“You just said the secret word!”
<Duck falls from the ceiling>
I suppose it would be too much to hope for a Hannibal Lecter type mask?
And strapped to a two wheeler.
Well, there’s always the Bobby Seale solution. Lots of people didn’t like that at the time; it even made it into a protest song. But in this case, I think many would make an exception.
Naaaa. That kind of treatment is only for the out-group.