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New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Mercan gave jurors in former President Donald Trump’s hush trial Wednesday morning his most important instructions yet on how he will procedurally decide the outcome of the case.
Reading 55 pages of jury instructions, Merchan somberly told the 12-member panel that they were responsible for evaluating the evidence presented in the trial.
He then outlined the next steps, including what jurors must agree on and what they do. ~ no I have to agree.
The specific language of the jury’s verdict was negotiated at length by defense and prosecution attorneys last week, given the instructions’ inherent power in determining the jury’s verdict.
Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts of first-degree falsifying business records. Each item corresponds to a different document, including bills and checks reimbursing his former fixer Michael Cohen for paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“Under our law, a person is guilty of falsifying a business record in the first degree when, with the intent to defraud, including the intent to commit, aid or conceal the commission of another crime: “Making or causing a false statement in the company’s business records.”
To find Trump guilty on any count, jurors must find that Trump knowingly, with a “conscious object or purpose,” defrauded any person or entity “with the intent to commit another crime or to assist or conceal the commission of that crime.” I have to agree with this point. .”
So they must come to the conclusion that Trump falsified records in furtherance of other crimes. According to prosecutors, the crime is New York Election Code Section 17-152, which prevents “conspiracy to promote or interfere with the election of any person for public office by unlawful means.”
Throughout the trial, prosecutors emphasized how poorly Trump’s campaign ran in October 2016. The ‘Access Hollywood’ tape has just been released, revealing crude comments Trump made about sexually assaulting women. Prosecutors said the damage the video had already done to the Trump campaign motivated Trump to prevent Daniels from speaking publicly about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump knew nothing about the payments at the time. Trump has also consistently denied dating rumors. Prosecutors argued that the voting public had the right to hear Daniels’ story and make their own decisions about Trump’s fitness for office.
Did Trump falsify records because he was involved in a conspiracy to win the 2016 election? This is what the jury must agree on. However, there is no need for unanimous agreement on the exact details of the conspiracy, or “illegal means.”
The prosecution presented three possibilities to choose from. The conspiracy included violations of federal election campaign laws. Falsifying other business records or violating local tax laws.
For example, jurors might be persuaded to consider the hush money refund scheme a campaign finance violation because it exceeded the legal limit of $2,700 for individual campaign contributions in 2015 and 2016. Or they may decide that Cohen, a shell company, has opened its doors. More counterfeit business documents were created to funnel funds to Daniels. The rationale behind Trump’s actions is that individual jurors can disagree while convicting Trump on all counts.
The rest of Merchan’s instructions were mostly boilerplate. The judge told the jury that Trump should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. He provided advice on how to assess the reliability of evidence. He suggested, for example, that he consider the witness’s consistency and demeanor on the witness stand.
“You bring all your diverse experiences to this process. In life, you often determine the truth and accuracy of statements made to you by other people,” Merchan said. “In evaluating the testimony in these cases, the same factors used to make that decision must be used.”
Now that the jury is out to deliberate, it’s anyone’s guess how long it will take for them to make a decision.
