You might assume that a judge is going to be less likely to decide this case based on his opinion of Trump as a candidate, or president, or person and more likely to decide it based on the evidence and the law. You’d certainly like to think that neither a judge nor a juror’s opinion on the case would be determined based on that person’s partisan affiliation, but I’d generally feel more confident hoping that from a judge. (Unsympathetic defendants often elect bench trials precisely for that reason, apart from any partisan concerns).
And, of course, a judge’s findings of fact are more susceptible to review on appeal.
I’m trying to imageine what class of people in NYC vote Republican, generally. Would they be challenged during jury selection as being identifiable by the colour of their silk tie?
Business Insider article says that the plaintiff (NY AG) clearly ticked the box saying that they wanted a bench trial, and embeds that form in their article.
Trump and his lawyer on this file, Alina Habba, both said they wanted a jury trial.
To get one, they would have had to file a request for one, or else the plaintiff’s choice governed. The article said that Trump wouldn’t have been guaranteed a jury trial for this type of case, but they had to ask for it.
I can only speak about the ones I am acquainted with - and they do not wear silk ties. They only wear ties for weddings and maybe funerals. Think Archie Bunker and you will be pretty close.
If this were a Mafia movie, a good reason to not choose a jury is because the judge is bought and paid for. I don’t think that’s what happened here, just getting the thought out of my head.
As I mentioned earlier, I saw an article that said that even if his lawyer had asked for a jury trial, the judge might not have granted it. I found the reference, referring to a statement the judge made today:
That sounds like the old distinction between law and equity. There were juries in common law matters, where you got a verdict for a monetary amount. There were no juries in equity cases, where you were asking the judge to issue an order, like an injunction.
I don’t know about NY law, but the 7th Amendment to the US Constitution preserves the right to a civil jury in “suits at common law” but not equity, which sounds like the same idea.
That would make sense. But I thought the way it worked, when there were overlapping claims in equity and law, was that the claims at law would be decided by a jury, and then the claims in equity would be decided by a judge, but with the judge bound by the jury’s factual findings to the extent the legal and equitable claims overlapped.
Or maybe that’s just a general rule, and NY state has something different. Not a lawyer.
I wondered about this - could there have been a strategic decision by Trump that a bench trial might carry a slightly higher risk of a finding against him, but also likely result in a less emotionally based damages award?
Would it have been open for a jury, if one had been empanelled, to recommend much higher damages, and punitively so if they got a straight flush of anti-Trumper jurors? Something in the order of $2 billion jillion, or are such damages capped?
His lawyer is now claiming that they didnt have the option of a jury trial. She says the charges fall under consumer law so it has to be a bench trial. I am not qualified to know if she is correct but perhaps somebody here is
Tangent, but is there constitutional precedent for a lawyer’s actions overriding his client’s wishes?
Can a judge say, “Even though you, the defendant, (Trump) have the Constitutional right to a jury, your lawyer made a clerical error waiving that right, and I’m going to give greater weight to your lawyer’s actions than to your own preference and wishes?”
That sounds…troubling. Imagine if it were applied in any other scenario - say, Trump wants to use his Constitutional right to confront his accusers in court, but his lawyer files a written statement “Let’s not let Trump do so” and so Trump gets denied the right.
It’s a civil trial. For a criminal trial, it appears that NY requires the waiving of a jury to be made on the court record, in person, by the defendant, who is also required to sign a document which becomes an Exhibit in the trial.
I think it was the legal analyst on the Rachel Maddow show - said (as others have mentioned) because the trial involves not just monetary rewards but sanctions, that it must go to a judge not a jury. Sanctions include loss of business licenses, barring the persons from doing business in the state in future and clawing back the profits from the illegal activity(!) as well as the fines for illegal behaviour. That needs to be determined by a judge.
But that depends - I wonder whether the jury pool is Manhattan or all of NYC?
It sure does. A lot about the legal system is troubling. But what’s least troubling is with (purportedly, but TBD) wealthy clients who can actually afford legal representation choosing… poorly. I’ll save my pity for the people who can’t afford representation being evicted from their homes after paying someone else’s mortgage for 20 years, because they don’t know how to defend themselves and the judge is more interested in administrative efficiency than justice or fairness.
