Glad you posted this because I’ve been thinking of those two often. I think you are right. But I can see it going the other way, though.
Juror Lawyer: I’m 90% confident the prosecution proved their case therefore I must acquit.
They intellectually understand reasonable doubt/standard of proof and are comfortable being confident (but not convinced) about facts but not finding the Defendant guilty because they have a reasonable doubt.
Or they don’t. Who knows. I don’t even know what kind of lawyers they are. To be honest (through focus groups, etc), it depends way more on the juror’s personality. Are they a leader or a follower. Juries typically follow leaders regardless of their occupation. You just hope there are not two leaders who see the case differently that would lead to a hung jury.
One thing that gives me hope is how good Judge Merchan is. I believe he would have found a way to get rid of any squirrels.
Another thing is the conduct of this jury itself throughout the trial. They seem like they are taking their responsibilities seriously. Everyone shows up on time, they aren’t very emotive but they’re paying attention, they’re taking notes – and they seem to studiously avoid looking at Trump. All these things bode well, IME.
Goddamn autocorrect! I swear I typed contradictory.
I certainly meant contradictory. There is no need for the jurors to come up with a theory of what really happened that fits all the facts and arguments. They just need to find enough doubt that the story the prosecution presented is true.
I don’t think this is going to work, but I don’t think it’s a bad approach. A juror who goes more on gut feeling might decide that four minor doubts add up to enough total doubt to acquit (in other words, the fallacious 90% x 90% x 90% x 90% results in only 65% confidence). A juror who approaches it more methodically is either going to vote for conviction, or decide that one of those excuses introduces enough doubt to acquit. They will ignore the gish gallop approach entirely.
Have they introduced anything that contradicts what the prosecution has already presented? All they have seemed to do (in what little I;ve read on CNN, so there is that) is confirm that which the jury has already heard.
I feel like this might be more context dependant than Brennan is making it. It’s a good rule of thumb but not an absolute.
In most cases, the suspect is some person that the police fingered. If there’s some friend or loved one of the victim, they don’t necessarily know that person or have any context about them. Usually, they don’t have direct evidence of that person’s guilt (it only goes to trial if no one has clear evidence of guilt). If they’re giving testimony that they hate the suspect, when they have no personal evidence sufficient to rule that person guilty, then we know that they’re not being fully rational. We can’t trust evidence from an irrational source.
In this case, Cohen’s story is that he was actively engaged in trying to commit a crime with Trump and was turned on by his partner. Being angry, when you know that they deserve it, isn’t so unreasonable.
In the context of Cohen’s story, we can only really envision two reasons for him to be angry:
As stated, his partner in crime hung him out to dry.
After doing something good for Trump, on his lonesome and of his own cognizance, Trump used the FBI to target and prosecute him.
In that second case, Cohen is angry that he was punished for being friendly - even though it was a criminal act. And he’s punishing Trump for acting properly as the Executive of the US government law force.
But that already seems unlikely. Trump hangs out with sketchy folk. He seems likely to have cheated on his wife. There’s reason to believe that he was sending messages to Cohen, asking him to stonewall the FBI.
If Trump wanted to sell that picture, anyhow, I think that he would need to be able to show things like:
Interviews with FBI agents about his involvement and saying, from day 1, that he had no knowledge of Cohen’s intentions.
An explanation for the “pay her in cash” request.
An explanation for Giuliani’s interference and why he continued to involve himself with Giuliani after he had also acted criminally in Trump’s defense.
Attestations by the director of the FBI that he had held separate from the investigation.
That the Manhattan DA had failed to meet with Trump, hear his story, nor follow up on information that would confirm the larger story of Trump’s heroicism behind the scenes.
And so on.
In general, I’d expect to see on the witness list some people like Jim Comey, the Manhattan DA, some FBI agents, etc.
The closest that I see is Reince Preibus, who could maybe confirm that Trump did nothing to stop the investigation into Cohen. Giuliani could also come in and say why he did what he did…but a I’m skeptical that the defense will call him.
In general, there’s not much evidence for option 2 of Cohen’s anger and it doesn’t seem likely that much, if any, will be introduced, going by the witness list.
Cohen seems likely to be angry for the reason that he says he’s angry, and that displays a relatively rational mindset.
In a case where there’s no slam dunk statement by Trump to break the law nor coordination on how to break the law, and we’re relying on Cohen’s ability to read the mind of Trump, believing in Cohen’s rationality isn’t irrelevant.
The evidence is still good against Trump. It’s better if we also believe Cohen.
I think the evidence presented before Cohen testified is strong enough to convict Trump. Cohen’s testimony is only pounding the rubble of Trump’s denials.
That’s what I think, too. Cohen is a narrator, nothing more. The case was made on the testimony of Pecker, Hicks and the documents.
Alvin Bragg was as cautious as a country mouse when it came to bringing this prosecution. He almost didn’t go for it. There’s simply no way he was going to bring a loser of a case.
Yeah if the defense were going to get things going their way it was going to be with Cohens cross examination, and nothing I’ve heard comes close to doing that. Maybe things will change on Thursday but I don’t see it.
