Thanks for the link. I browsed. IANAL, but my take:
The six counts temporarily dismissed seem to revolve around the defendants efforts to induce others not to uphold their oaths of office.
From the decision:
All three statutory oaths contain, with some linguistic variation, a provision that the oath-taker will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Georgia. The indictment, when detailing the manner and means of the criminal enterprise alleged in Count One, describes the Defendants as soliciting Georgia officials “to violate their oaths to the Georgia Constitution and to the United States Constitution.”6 Thus, reading the indictment as a whole, which the trial court is required to do, confirms that these are the prescribed terms at issue in the six challenged counts. While the averments do contain a reference to the terms of the violated oaths, this Court finds that the incorporation of the United States and Georgia Constitutions is so generic as to compel this Court to grant the special demurrers. On its own, the United States Constitution contains hundreds of clauses, any one of which can be the subject of a lifetime’s study.
So the oaths they took make reference to the US and Georgia Constitutions, but the indictments specific to these six charges simply didn’t give enough detail about the portions of the US and Georgia Constitutions that would have been tied to their oaths and – allegedly – broken by their actions if the Defendants were successful in their efforts.
A fairly simple error for the Prosecution to correct … if they feel the need to do so.
Jury selection for another Georgia RICO case, where there also was a lot of prejudicial pretrial publicity, took ten months last year. That ten months was a record, but another record is the amount of pretrial publicity regarding Donald Trump.
What little info I see in that article suggests that despite being a Republican appointee, he isn’t in the bag for Trump. He didn’t pull any punches with Lin Wood at least.
That’s all very good – and McAfee seemed fair to me, as well – but it’s for nothing if every defense motion pushes the trial back two months. And the defense apparently has a barrelful of motions to enter, all of which need to be treated seriously and deliberately (apparently).
Is it even possible in a case like this for a motion to get summarily slapped down as frivolous? Wonder where (and if) that line is drawn?
Eh, the very fact that the judge tolerated this nonsense - that he let gossip about the DA’s personal life be used as a basis for courtroom testimony - leaves me with a very negative impression of him.
Much like the other republican judges who have eschewed impartiality to instead assist donald, this judge has managed to a) tarnish the prosecution’s reputation and b) provide fodder for political efforts to have her removed from her position.
Sure, this judge didn’t disqualify Fanni Willis. But he let her get dragged through the mud. And now politicians in Atlanta can take their stab at her.
Frequently, when judges are derided within the profession, it’s because it feels like they are a prosecutor on the bench. It is just astounding that a judge would ever entertain a claim that the DA was unfairly biased against a defendant.
At most, this should have been referred to the agency that regulates attorneys (usually the state Bar) for review of an ethics complaint. Personally, though, in any other case, I’d be fearful of presenting it to the judge lest I get a bar complaint (for filing something so frivolous, not to mention salacious). I’d certainly be wary of showing my face in that courthouse again.
All that matters to me is that the case can proceed! How crazy is it that, more than three years on, Individual One still has not faced any judicial consequences for his crimes against democracy? (And he may yet wriggle free…)
I agree. And I certainly don’t have your expertise, but I still don’t understand the terrible decisions he says she made. If her relationship with Wade did not violate the law, and if he concludes that there was no financial benefit—then what’s the beef here?
He commented on the lack of a financial record to buttress her testimony. That’s not how this works! The defense alleged bad acts. They need to provide the evidence.
Aside from his assessment of a defense she made of Wade at some rally—and I have no opinion on that—I still cannot understand what are the bad, bad things that she did. I guess I’m dense.
– Trump team appeals, since they supposedly want both Willis and Wade off the case.
– Fani Willis restarts the difficult search to find a qualified special prosecutor willing to take a case that will upend their life for many years
– Trial is delayed until the new special prosecutor can begin their new job, and get up to speed on a complex case
– Trial is delayed for at least several years, with multiple continuances, not so much because of the prosecutor change, or because of Trump possibly being back in the White House, but because many-count Georgia felony cases, where the defendant insists on a trial, normally take many years to get underway, and complete.
– Willis, having gained confidence in her existing team, proceeds without a lead special prosecutor (can she even do that?)
I don’t get why it’s complex. We have all the evidence. Trump has admitted to the phone call. Does this case also involve RICO and fake electors? Really, it should be a slam dunk.
Yes, it’s not terrible complex. Prosecutors (and all lawyers) sometimes make things a lot more complicated than they need to be, but I’m sure there are lawyers on the current team who could step up.
What grinds my gears about his decision is how it is rested on the “appearance of impropriety.”
Then we all sit by and watch Clarence Thomas accept bribes from Harlan Crow or Leonard Leo in exchange for rulings he makes in his capacity as a Supreme Court Justice, or sit in judgment on cases where his wife is actively involved as a participant, and pretend like there’s no actual impropriety occurring.