Very, very unlikely.
The O.J Simpson trial started on Sept 24, and just one tiny part of it-- jury selection—continued for 2 and a half months until Dec 4.
Then the actual trial circus began.
There is a a long list of dates for varioius hearings before the May 20th date. I’m guessing that Trump’s lawyers will find an excuse to delay each hearing, one at a time, for a few days or a week. so that the May date gets pushed back again and again, maybe till June or July. Add in three months jury selection, and the main trial won’t end till after the election
And, yes, Trump will win the election in November.
And yes, he can legally pardon himself.
This is not the same. I doubt this will be a televised circus, likely no cameras will be allowed. This is federal court, not California or any other state court. This isn’t murder, it’s a pretty straightforward violation of the law where everything is pretty carefully documented.
I don’t think the O. J. trial can be an example of anything. It was a crazy one time event.
Because it’s a different crazy one time event with far more differences than similarities, and there is no reason to expect one to happen the way the other did.
To go further on this point, the court room in Fort Pierce is exceptionally small. It only has two rows for the press/public. It would comfortably seat about a dozen or so people, and I think at the last hearing they squeezed 30/with standing. That was for a boring hearing. No video, cameras nor cellphones or any type of electronics. Lastly, unlike LA, there’s not a lot of hotels and it’s somewhat far from Miami or Orlando.
Just a bad combo of a remote, and small courtroom holding a trial that would have press from around the world.
The Govt will try and move it to Miami, but it’ll be a motion the Judge will have to rule on.
If I were the govt, I’d leave it right there. The idea is a conviction, not a circus. DJT and team would love to turn this into a media/campaign event. Keep it boing, just the facts, just the verdict.
I have done trials in California state courts and I have done trials in federal courts around the country. I assure you, they are quite different. I once was forced to try a multi-million complicated insurance dispute in 4 days (including jury selection). Both parties told the federal judge it would take two weeks. I can’t say for certain how Judge Cannon will run things, but the federal judges I know would make sure this was over in 3 to 5 weeks, max.
Jury selection is usually around 2-3 hours in federal court. In some state courts in goes on for days.
I’ll grant you this case could be different for many reasons (including the judge). But I’ll stand by my prediction. If it starts on May 1, it will be over before July1.
I was kinda hoping when it was initially pushed back, that the judge would have made it very clear that running for president, while his right, is also his choice and that he understands that all trial related matters take precedence over election related matters and that the trial dates/locations won’t be moved around work with his election schedule.
Or just a simple ‘we’re not stupid, we all see what you’re doing, just know that you’re the one backing yourself into this corner’.
This scares me.
(disclaimer: I have zero knowledge of courtroom procedures. But in my childlike innocence and naivete, I want to believe that courtrooms are places where fairness and logic and careful thinking exist)
Three hours (maximum?) is 180 minutes–that’s 15 minutes for each of 12 seats in the jury box. One third of the jury pool in Cannon’s district are MAGA cultists, and must be excused from jury duty. So that means for each seat on the jury, you need to interview 4-5 people, (so about three minutes per person). Three minutes to eliminate 2 fanatic cultists, and have an intelligent discussion with 2 or 3 other people to see if they are qualified.
For the most high-profile case in American history, is this really how it will work?
There will be a questionnaire administered to the venire before jury selection, enough in advance that both sides can go over them to get a sense of the jurors, their backgrounds, any indicated biases. When each juror is under consideration, the judge will go through a set of questions which will have been discussed with the attorneys before emplanelment, and after the judge is done the lawyers may ask to be allowed a followup question or two.
Each side will get X amount of strikes for cause plus X amount of what’s called peremptory (not preemptory) strikes not requiring them to give any reason. When 12 jurors plus two or three alternate have been chosen, the attorneys will probably be given one last chance to strike anyone already seated, unless they’ve used up their challenges already.
Jurors can ask to be let off for various life circumstances, but federal judges tend to be tough about granting escapes.
ETA: Oh, and an attorney may ask for a prospective juror to be struck for cause but if the judge disagrees then it’s use up a peremptory or the juror is seated. Discussions of whether to strike are held at sidebar so the jurors don’t know who’s objecting to them, or why.
NItpick, there is no limit on challenges for cause (although they are typically hard to get granted. This case could be the exception, for obvious reasons)
I do think Judge Cannon will have to use more time then usual for selecting a jury in this case. Nonetheless, it will be a day or two, not a week or two.
I would rather the trial started earlier, but I’m sanguine about it. tRump’s lawyers can ask for continuances, but that doesn’t mean they will be granted.
This should make the Republican primary a hoot. Unlike the Democrats, who would skate around the subject or make a sideway reference to one of their own being under indictment, the Repub also-rans are going to use this as their moment in the spotlight. Can you imagine Ronda holding his tongue “out of respect”? (OMG, that sentence almost burst into flames…)
“Hey, Donnie, how’s that pre-trial discovery coming?”
Yeah, selecting a jury for this trial will certainly take longer than usual. But there’s still a lot of room between “longer than three hours” and “weeks”.
Also, parts of the jury-selection process can be parallelized, with enough manpower. I guarantee that as soon as the pool of prospective jurors is known to the lawyers, each team will have someone assigned to Googling the social media history of each of the jurors.
Does the defendant have to be present during the trial? Trial in abstentia is one thing but if the defendant voluntarily decides to let his lawyers handle the bulk of the trial while he pursues other matters is quite another.
Cannon might go along with that shit but I don’t think the other judges will. They’ll tell Donnie to park his fat ass in the dock and keep his mouth shut or face contempt charges.
Why is the small courtroom a problem? WRT media, I’ve never quite understood the benefit of a wall of microphones with shouted questions compared to a limited number of shared feeds.
IMO&E, many litigants and attorneys confuse DUE process with UNLIMITED process. It is impressive how much can be done efficiently when the parties know they are subject to time and page length constraints.
On both federal juries I served on it took essentially all day (~6-8 hours), but that was it. In the one case they went with one fewer alternate than normal, just because they didn’t want to go through the trouble of calling a second pool for another day to ferret out one more body.