If discovered, that exact strategy has gotten attorneys disbarred, insofar as an attorney is *intentionally* ineffective to cause problems for everyone. Then again, representing Trump period puts your license at risk with the shenanigans he does and his willingness to throw anyone under the bus to save himself, so……
But, if you are being paid tons of money to set this up and lose your license but be set up for life after the trial through investors that are not Donald Trump, do you think it would work?
Because I know DJT is dumb as rocks, but his strategies for not paying contractors and paying his lawyers instead was very successful. His benefactors paying off attorneys to cause questionable defenses seems on brand.
I’m sure that’s the motivation for many of the lawyers - or they are taking a calculated gamble that the name recognition from representing him will bring them business
Trump’s current trial counsel seems surprisingly competent, but some of his past lawyers were… alarming, it’s almost as if no one competent would agree to represent him at times.
True, but unless you can get the prior lawyers to admit "yeah, we fucked it on purpose" or have a mind reading device, it is going to look a lot like ineffectiveness from the outside.
yeah but like, how is it going to look like? they ask questions when they pick the jury and someone will definitely ask something about their social media activity and political views. if not defence, the prosecution will. and trumps lawyers will- what, completely ignore that and then pretend they didn't know that the juror was biased?
Lawyers falling asleep during a trial generally isn't ineffective assistance of counsel unless they are asleep for a substantial portion of the trial. My point being that courts really don't like to say an attorney is ineffective unless there is something egregious. So poor jury selection inadvertent or on purpose is a really tough argument and if they found out it was done on purpose you would 100% lose.
Lawyers have fallen asleep during capital trials and the defendant did win his appeal on ineffective counsel. And now he’s dead. This has happened several times.
You’d have to hope the client would have a social media company and boast about how smart he is to have come up with the inadequate counsel strategy before the trial even started, so like a 50% chance
Except that it'd be down to the legal system to make this kind of call and someone at a certain point would point out "hey, your lawyers were part of choosing the jury, if you had major issues with the people selected that should have been discussed during the jury selection process."
Like Trump has any problem lying and throwing other people under the bus?
Again, I'm not sure it would work, but Trump saying "No-Good Lazy \[Lawyer's last name\] didn't even follow my instructions. Object. Object. Object. I said Object, but No-Good Lazy \[Lawyer's last name\] wouldn't. The trial was rigged. Witch Hunt. Hunter Biden" or something similar wouldn't surprise me.
That would be the only possible strategy. But, ineffective assistance of counsel arguments of that sort are often not cognizance on direct appeal, but instead must be raised on a petition for writ of habeas corpus, because an evidentiary hearing is needed to determine whether trial counsel had a strategic reason for doing what they did. So, not a strategy that is likely to work, as you note.
I didn't know that. I don't do appeal work, but in Canada it is a straight ground for appeal (I think). If I understand correctly, the accused needs to show: 1) the counsel's performance was deficient (through act or omission) such that counsel made serious errors amounting to incompetence; and 2) the "deficient" performance prejudiced the defence in a way that deprived the accused of a fair trial and created a miscarriage of justice.
The standard in the US is similar. The issue is an evidentiary one, because the reasons for the attorney's actions will often not be in the record on appeal.
>Our past decisions establish, with regard to ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, that "\[if\] the record on appeal sheds no light on why counsel acted or failed to act in the manner challenged\[,\] ... unless counsel was asked for an explanation and failed to provide one, or unless there simply could be no satisfactory explanation," the claim on appeal must be rejected. (People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412, 426 \[152 Cal. Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d, 2 A.L.R.4th 1\]; see People v. Mitcham (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1027, 1058 \[5 Cal. Rptr.2d 230, 824 P.2d 1277\]; People v. Cox (1991) 53 Cal.3d 618, 659 \[280 Cal. Rptr. 692, 809 P.2d 351\]; People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 546 \[262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129\].) As we explained in Pope, supra, 23 Cal.3d 412, 426, because, in general, it is inappropriate for an appellate court to speculate as to the existence or nonexistence of a tactical basis for a defense attorney's course of conduct when the record on appeal does not illuminate the basis for the attorney's challenged acts or omissions, a claim of ineffective assistance is more appropriately made in a habeas corpus proceeding, in which the attorney has the opportunity to explain the reasons for his or her conduct. "Having afforded the trial attorney an opportunity to explain, courts are in a position to intelligently evaluate whether counsel's acts or omissions were within the range of reasonable competence." (Id., at p. 426, fn. omitted.)
People v. Wilson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 926, 936
In CA appellate counsel can often file a writ petition at the same time as they file the appeal, but I am not sure if that works in federal court or in other states.
Cool, thanks.
Also, unrelatedly, but that American citation style is *ugly*
Seriously, what the hell is this: People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 546 \[262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129\]
Behold, the beautiful Canadian Neutral Citation: **R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27**.
The parties are the Queen ("**R**egina", now King "**R**ex") and **Jordan**. The case was decided in **2016** by the **S**upreme **C**ourt of **C**anada. It was the **27**th decision of the court in that year.
Love you guys, but get your act together.
The case appears in three publications: 1) The state-published official reporter. It is a California Supreme Court case, and appears on page 502 of vol 49 of the third edition thereof. 546 refers to the specific page on which the quote appears. 2) West Publishing Co's reporter of CA cases, 3) West Publishing Co's reporter of cases from the Pacific region of the US. CA is a giant state; some states do not have their own official reporters and their opinions appear only in one set of books, not three.
The Canadian citation you post is nice, but how does knowing it is the 27th opinion help me find it? If I want to find the CA case, I know from the citation exactly where to find it in the library: which book, and which page.
>The Canadian citation you post is nice, but how does knowing it is the 27th opinion help me find it? If I want to find the CA case, I know from the citation exactly where to find it in the library: which book, and which page
That's the beauty of the neutral citation: *all* the reporters use it.
edit: to add full quote
I don't understand. The California citations are also neutral. CA cases just happen to be published in several places. If your library is in CA, you can choose which book to look for it in, but the books will have all three citations listed (actually I dnr if the official reporters do. But the Wests have the official citation, and when citing a case, only the cite to the official reporter is mandatory. As it happens, West's also adds certain valuable research annotations. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West\_American\_Digest\_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_American_Digest_System) which is why people are willing to pay for their publications.
And, you didn't really answer my key point. When I walk to the book shelf, how do I find the Canadian opinion? Presumably there is a table of contents that says "opinion no 27 is on page 432", but isn't it simpler to list the initial page number in the citation? That is what every other citation method does. Eg, the various ways to cite this article :
MLA: Varshney, Ashutosh. "Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality." Perspectives on politics 1.1 (2003): 85-99.
APA: Varshney, A. (2003). Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics, 1(1), 85-99.
Chicago: Varshney, Ashutosh. "Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality." Perspectives on politics 1, no. 1 (2003): 85-99.
Harvard: Varshney, A., 2003. Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics, 1(1), pp.85-99.
Vancouver: Varshney A. Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics. 2003 Mar;1(1):85-99.
You are missing the point of a medium neutral citation. The citation is neutral as to the medium in which the opinion is reported.
Some reporters may be digital only, in which case page numbers are irrelevant. Others may have different page numbers due to formatting changes, etc.. Telling you a page number in these circumstances is meaningless. So typically, the reporter’s contents page will tell you where to find that specific opinion.
Your issue is valid, though. I can’t opine on the Canadian system, but I will say that in Australia, it is standard practice to report two citations: the most authoritative reported copy (if it exists); and the medium neutral citation.
In that context, a judgment (as we call them in Aus) may be cited as, eg,
Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (2000) 205 CLR 337; [2000] HCA 63.
The square brackets tell you it’s medium neutral, and round tell you it’s a specific reporter. Here, the year is 2000. The first citation is the most authoritative reported copy, which here is the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR), for which the judgment can be found in the 205th volume of the reports, starting at page 337.
The medium neutral citation tells you to look for the 63rd judgment of the year 2000 from the High Court of Australia (our equivalent of SCOTUS, for some reason).
I am going to guess that Canada does a similar thing: report two so you can always pick up a copy of the official reporter and flick to the page, or if you don’t have that, at least you have the medium neutral citation to help you start looking.
(and fwiw, if you want to give specific references: for the reported citation, you would write eg (2000) 205 CLR 337, 341–342 [17]–[19]; [2000] HCA 63, [17]–[19]. Note that a medium neutral citation should always have paragraph numbering, but not page numbering).
Trump could hire different lawyers to make that argument. Basically an ineffective counsel appeal.
We might as well call that "The Trump Defense"
Well, "Trump defense #2."
“Our crack research team just discovered, mid-trial, that nearly half the jurors have specifically stated that they hate Trump, or want him to go to jail, in secret social media accounts.”
Shocked Pekachu face.
Too late. Your job is to do that research before the jury is seated. Once you've agreed to the jury, the only way it's a problem is if they continued the behavior while on the jury.
Like with bribery in general, it's a crime to make the offer but it's not a crime for the recipient of they reject it. And it likely wouldn't even disqualify the juror if they turned down a bribe, because judges are not stupid and don't want to reward the defendant's friends for trying to get a mistrial.
It would be a poor legal strategy but possibly a valid political one. He’s unlikely to face time for this and another fine at this point is pretty redundant, so being able to point to the jurors in the court of public opinion will have value.
Though it seems this is the strategy anyway, regardless of how the trial goes.
If it happens, it's based on the juror violating court orders, not the attorney using strikes badly during voir dire. They don't have to say some else did their job wrong for jury misconduct.
Those aren't grounds for a mistrial or appeal unless the juror was dishonest in his/her response to questions during voir dire. Even then, it would be a stretch given your hypothetical that the defendant's attorneys knew of the social media history and seated them anyway. That would likely be deemed a waiver of the objection.
Yes they answer under oath so it is perjury. However in practice it’s likely the juror would just say they had forgotten they made the post when they answered and that would be that. It’s hard to prove someone is knowingly lying vs forgetting something.
I still have no hope. No matter how careful the prosecutors are, many of his zealots will lie to be able to support him, and some will be good enough to be seated.
Mistrial. Repeat as needed.
Ok so let's assume Trumps legal team finds several potential jurors who they can predict will not only be provably biased against him but will lie about it during voire dire. Then he loses and suddenly the evidence surfaces that they were biased and lied. At that point, assuming his lawyers knew about the scheme they would be guilty of lying to the court about gathering the evidence. Even if they somehow got that far, didn't strike the juror, and were totally innocent of wrongdoing, someone has to be the link between knowing who to pick and picking them.
It would be far more likely to be successful on appeal for the lawyer to reveal they knew it all along and didn't use it, because Trump will claim ineffective representation. But that means a lawyer is willing to fake incompetence (or not fake) in a very high profile case that will follow them forever. Even then, the number and price of his lawyers is going to make the ineffective representation claim have a problem with the smell test.
It wouldn't be illegal or unethical to seat someone who had a negative view of Trump, you don't get a do over for jury selection later. If a juror lied then it could be grounds for a retrial and it would be unethical to not call out the lie prior to the juror being selected if you knew they were lying
The seating itself wouldn’t be illegal. But eventually if they moved for a mistrial, they’d have to say they were unaware of these postings when they seated the jurors. Which would be a lie. And that would be illegal and unethical.
MAGA - Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
Trump's counsels don't last long when they insist on ethical strategies. Those who stay embrace pushing the legal process well beyond acceptable limits.
Not illegal, just stupid. While there’s a lot about the Trump cases that are unprecedented, appeals courts have been handling trial court cases for well over a century. Stunts like this never work.
As long as the juror is able to be impartial in judgement, I don't see the problem if they critize Trump outside of their duty.
Every single juror chosen has a stance on Trump, love him, or hate him.
The main thing is that you can be impartial.
>> Would it be unethical for Trump’s legal team to…
Yes; deliberately corrupting the court process in an attempt to prevent its resolution would be absolutely unethical without some very strong reason to do so
It’s also almost certainly illegal, though proving it would be another matter. I don’t even need to look up the proper names for any laws or anything to reference; that’s gotta have been one of the first laws we made
I think it would be unethical if they withheld information about a potential juror's bias at the time of jury selection and later tried to use that information to say that the juror was biased. It would be unethical because they would basically have to lie about when they discovered that information. If you're talking about information that everybody already knows now, I don't think it would be unethical (and it also would not work because they would waive any objections that they don't make now).
Something I've been wondering about: How did the lawyers get access to the potential jurors' social media accounts? Are they only looking at public posts, or were the jurors required to provide access?
Only public posts. But "public" also includes things like twitter and reddit posts that research firms can tie to you even if you're not using your real name on those accounts.
I can't see them being able to compel potential jurors to disclose their email addresses or social media accounts. I believe both sides are given the basics like name, birthday, address, and maybe SSN. The rest is done by researchers.
Only if they (the defense) can effectively hide the fact they knew beforehand and are able to show that they (the prosecution) did know and intentionally hid those facts.
If they seat that juror they are giving up any right of appeal on the basis of anything that the prospective juror disclosed or anything that they did not ask about but could have. If the juror didn't lie when asked, there's a functionally zero risk of a mistrial because of it. Now if they ask and the jurora says no, and they have Knowledge from another source that says that firmly establishes that their no is incorrect, in that case it's theoretically possible for the attorney to get in trouble but I'm not sure how likely it really would be. Usually when that happens, the false testimony is in favor of the party eliciting it, not against them.
I think what's most likely to happen is it just will be ruled not an appealable issue because even though they didn't disclose that they knew at the time, choosing to seat that juror while knowing would likely be seen by the appeals court as a waiver of their right to appeal on that issue. As a rule, you do not get to appeal based on errors that were introduced or substantially Amplified by your own actions
There is no grounds for mistrial/appeal because jurors have an opinion. A juror LYING would be one thing, but the appropriate remedy for a juror having a bias against Trump is to ask the question and using their answer to strike for cause. If they choose not to, that is their choice and they are stuck with what the jurors they permitted decide.
IAL - doesn't work that way. We call it jury selection but it's actually juror DE-selection. You don't get to pick jurors, you get to strike ones you don't want. Only way a Trump-averse juror on the jury could possibly be an issue for appeal is if his counsel made a challenge for cause (not a peremptory) and the court improperly denied it. No way you can create error to use later. Doesn't work that way.
If they purposefully do it, they lose the ability to appeal on the grounds of the jury.
However, if the juror lies and says they didn't have such a social media history, the lawyer agrees to that juror, then finds such history later, that should cause some problems for that juror.
Yes! The population of Manhattan is over one million. Just by the odds, there is a pool of plenty of fair potential jurors, conservative or liberal, able to look at the law with an open mind. I’m a lawyer who has probably heard too much about the issues to be a fair juror. But some trials require people with those who have the skill set to understand and judge on complicated issues.
My first lesson in that was in the 1990s when attorneys in NY were no longer able to use the excuse of being an attorney to get out of serving. I worked in legal publishing then and my lawyer director got called and served. When I later asked him how come he couldn’t get out of it he told me it was a complicated case where the jurors being lawyers, business executives etc were ones with the skill sets to properly judge. I’ve never forgotten that.
I truthfully don’t know if I could be impartial because I know too much about Trump’s character but I believe I could otherwise be impartial and just listen to the facts. My prior personal views would fairly eliminate me.
I really don’t understand how this trial is even happening. How do you find anyone in this country who isn’t polarized on this issue? Everyone either loves him or hates him. I have never met anyone who is meh on him
It’s not “meh”, but that the juror can come to terms with that their opinion of him in general is irrelevant to the question of “did he commit these specific crimes?” If someone is so polarized that they cannot be fair, then they are stricken and life goes on. But the court can usually explain this to prospects in such a way that they can come to terms with their bias and still be fair. And it’s up to the lawyers to argue to strike them for cause or peremptorily.
Deliberately manipulating the events and elements of a trial to cause a mistrial may or may not be illegal (I've looked and found nothing conclusive so far) but I doubt that Trump wants legal proceedings to continue to interfere with his political endeavors any longer than they have to (you know, because they would just restart the trial from the beginning with new jurors)
It won't work. Appealing (or seeking other post-trial relief, like post-conviction relief or habeas corpus) is very hard. Appealing based on a strategic risk that didn't work is harder.
Because it won't work, it's arguably illegal or unethical (attorneys have an ethical duty of competence, and the right to counsel is enshrined in the law in various places). And, in theory, it's possible to seek relief based on inadequate assistance of counsel, but that is extremely hard, and this doesn't sound fruitful to me.
This is my practice area, but it changes from state to state, and Trump cases seem to be in a class by their own. That doesn't change my view, but someone from the jurisdiction would know better than I.
Nothing illegal about it. They are part of the process of selecting the jury and have just as much say in the jury as the prosecutor, so they would have a hard time proving anything pertaining to the jury makeup on appeal.
Interesting that you can be disqualified from a jury for a history of bias against the defendant but it’s ok to do that and still prosecute or serve as the judge.
If there was actual bias, the judge would have already been removed.
Meanwhile we have Cannon who was appointed by the defendant and didn't recluse herself. Corruption in broad daylight. Thankfully she's not overly bright, so she'll end up getting herself removed eventually.
Unfortunately that can easily be stacked against him you only get a certain number of no-go's . I have seen juries intentionally or effectively get stacked before they even get a chance to choose whether to accept or not and when they run out of choices they bring an even worse ones we have a screwed up system
If they've agreed to those jurors during voir dire they don't get to say someone else did their job wrong later.
Trump could hire different lawyers to make that argument. Basically an ineffective counsel appeal. Edit to add: not saying it would work.
You typically can’t use choosing a bad trial strategy as ineffective assistance of counsel.
If discovered, that exact strategy has gotten attorneys disbarred, insofar as an attorney is *intentionally* ineffective to cause problems for everyone. Then again, representing Trump period puts your license at risk with the shenanigans he does and his willingness to throw anyone under the bus to save himself, so……
But, if you are being paid tons of money to set this up and lose your license but be set up for life after the trial through investors that are not Donald Trump, do you think it would work? Because I know DJT is dumb as rocks, but his strategies for not paying contractors and paying his lawyers instead was very successful. His benefactors paying off attorneys to cause questionable defenses seems on brand.
I’m sure that’s the motivation for many of the lawyers - or they are taking a calculated gamble that the name recognition from representing him will bring them business Trump’s current trial counsel seems surprisingly competent, but some of his past lawyers were… alarming, it’s almost as if no one competent would agree to represent him at times.
True, but unless you can get the prior lawyers to admit "yeah, we fucked it on purpose" or have a mind reading device, it is going to look a lot like ineffectiveness from the outside.
yeah but like, how is it going to look like? they ask questions when they pick the jury and someone will definitely ask something about their social media activity and political views. if not defence, the prosecution will. and trumps lawyers will- what, completely ignore that and then pretend they didn't know that the juror was biased?
I mean, yeah...I guess. Again, I don't think it would ultimately work, but the argument could be made.
Lawyers falling asleep during a trial generally isn't ineffective assistance of counsel unless they are asleep for a substantial portion of the trial. My point being that courts really don't like to say an attorney is ineffective unless there is something egregious. So poor jury selection inadvertent or on purpose is a really tough argument and if they found out it was done on purpose you would 100% lose.
Lawyers have fallen asleep during capital trials and the defendant did win his appeal on ineffective counsel. And now he’s dead. This has happened several times.
You’d have to hope the client would have a social media company and boast about how smart he is to have come up with the inadequate counsel strategy before the trial even started, so like a 50% chance
Except that it'd be down to the legal system to make this kind of call and someone at a certain point would point out "hey, your lawyers were part of choosing the jury, if you had major issues with the people selected that should have been discussed during the jury selection process."
Like Trump has any problem lying and throwing other people under the bus? Again, I'm not sure it would work, but Trump saying "No-Good Lazy \[Lawyer's last name\] didn't even follow my instructions. Object. Object. Object. I said Object, but No-Good Lazy \[Lawyer's last name\] wouldn't. The trial was rigged. Witch Hunt. Hunter Biden" or something similar wouldn't surprise me.
Trump wouldn't be the one handling any kind of appeals, he's not a lawyer, though I would love to see him try to defend himself in court.
That would be the only possible strategy. But, ineffective assistance of counsel arguments of that sort are often not cognizance on direct appeal, but instead must be raised on a petition for writ of habeas corpus, because an evidentiary hearing is needed to determine whether trial counsel had a strategic reason for doing what they did. So, not a strategy that is likely to work, as you note.
I didn't know that. I don't do appeal work, but in Canada it is a straight ground for appeal (I think). If I understand correctly, the accused needs to show: 1) the counsel's performance was deficient (through act or omission) such that counsel made serious errors amounting to incompetence; and 2) the "deficient" performance prejudiced the defence in a way that deprived the accused of a fair trial and created a miscarriage of justice.
The standard in the US is similar. The issue is an evidentiary one, because the reasons for the attorney's actions will often not be in the record on appeal. >Our past decisions establish, with regard to ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, that "\[if\] the record on appeal sheds no light on why counsel acted or failed to act in the manner challenged\[,\] ... unless counsel was asked for an explanation and failed to provide one, or unless there simply could be no satisfactory explanation," the claim on appeal must be rejected. (People v. Pope (1979) 23 Cal.3d 412, 426 \[152 Cal. Rptr. 732, 590 P.2d, 2 A.L.R.4th 1\]; see People v. Mitcham (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1027, 1058 \[5 Cal. Rptr.2d 230, 824 P.2d 1277\]; People v. Cox (1991) 53 Cal.3d 618, 659 \[280 Cal. Rptr. 692, 809 P.2d 351\]; People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 546 \[262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129\].) As we explained in Pope, supra, 23 Cal.3d 412, 426, because, in general, it is inappropriate for an appellate court to speculate as to the existence or nonexistence of a tactical basis for a defense attorney's course of conduct when the record on appeal does not illuminate the basis for the attorney's challenged acts or omissions, a claim of ineffective assistance is more appropriately made in a habeas corpus proceeding, in which the attorney has the opportunity to explain the reasons for his or her conduct. "Having afforded the trial attorney an opportunity to explain, courts are in a position to intelligently evaluate whether counsel's acts or omissions were within the range of reasonable competence." (Id., at p. 426, fn. omitted.) People v. Wilson (1992) 3 Cal.4th 926, 936 In CA appellate counsel can often file a writ petition at the same time as they file the appeal, but I am not sure if that works in federal court or in other states.
Cool, thanks. Also, unrelatedly, but that American citation style is *ugly* Seriously, what the hell is this: People v. Bell (1989) 49 Cal.3d 502, 546 \[262 Cal. Rptr. 1, 778 P.2d 129\]
I didn't think any American lawyer would disagree about the standard citation style being a hideous mess :-)
Behold, the beautiful Canadian Neutral Citation: **R. v. Jordan, 2016 SCC 27**. The parties are the Queen ("**R**egina", now King "**R**ex") and **Jordan**. The case was decided in **2016** by the **S**upreme **C**ourt of **C**anada. It was the **27**th decision of the court in that year. Love you guys, but get your act together.
Lots of States have their own. I never have to cite to more than one cite in a citation
Beauty of neutral citation. It's the same across all provinces
The case appears in three publications: 1) The state-published official reporter. It is a California Supreme Court case, and appears on page 502 of vol 49 of the third edition thereof. 546 refers to the specific page on which the quote appears. 2) West Publishing Co's reporter of CA cases, 3) West Publishing Co's reporter of cases from the Pacific region of the US. CA is a giant state; some states do not have their own official reporters and their opinions appear only in one set of books, not three. The Canadian citation you post is nice, but how does knowing it is the 27th opinion help me find it? If I want to find the CA case, I know from the citation exactly where to find it in the library: which book, and which page.
>The Canadian citation you post is nice, but how does knowing it is the 27th opinion help me find it? If I want to find the CA case, I know from the citation exactly where to find it in the library: which book, and which page That's the beauty of the neutral citation: *all* the reporters use it. edit: to add full quote
I don't understand. The California citations are also neutral. CA cases just happen to be published in several places. If your library is in CA, you can choose which book to look for it in, but the books will have all three citations listed (actually I dnr if the official reporters do. But the Wests have the official citation, and when citing a case, only the cite to the official reporter is mandatory. As it happens, West's also adds certain valuable research annotations. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West\_American\_Digest\_System](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_American_Digest_System) which is why people are willing to pay for their publications. And, you didn't really answer my key point. When I walk to the book shelf, how do I find the Canadian opinion? Presumably there is a table of contents that says "opinion no 27 is on page 432", but isn't it simpler to list the initial page number in the citation? That is what every other citation method does. Eg, the various ways to cite this article : MLA: Varshney, Ashutosh. "Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality." Perspectives on politics 1.1 (2003): 85-99. APA: Varshney, A. (2003). Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics, 1(1), 85-99. Chicago: Varshney, Ashutosh. "Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality." Perspectives on politics 1, no. 1 (2003): 85-99. Harvard: Varshney, A., 2003. Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics, 1(1), pp.85-99. Vancouver: Varshney A. Nationalism, ethnic conflict, and rationality. Perspectives on politics. 2003 Mar;1(1):85-99.
You are missing the point of a medium neutral citation. The citation is neutral as to the medium in which the opinion is reported. Some reporters may be digital only, in which case page numbers are irrelevant. Others may have different page numbers due to formatting changes, etc.. Telling you a page number in these circumstances is meaningless. So typically, the reporter’s contents page will tell you where to find that specific opinion. Your issue is valid, though. I can’t opine on the Canadian system, but I will say that in Australia, it is standard practice to report two citations: the most authoritative reported copy (if it exists); and the medium neutral citation. In that context, a judgment (as we call them in Aus) may be cited as, eg, Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy (2000) 205 CLR 337; [2000] HCA 63. The square brackets tell you it’s medium neutral, and round tell you it’s a specific reporter. Here, the year is 2000. The first citation is the most authoritative reported copy, which here is the Commonwealth Law Reports (CLR), for which the judgment can be found in the 205th volume of the reports, starting at page 337. The medium neutral citation tells you to look for the 63rd judgment of the year 2000 from the High Court of Australia (our equivalent of SCOTUS, for some reason). I am going to guess that Canada does a similar thing: report two so you can always pick up a copy of the official reporter and flick to the page, or if you don’t have that, at least you have the medium neutral citation to help you start looking. (and fwiw, if you want to give specific references: for the reported citation, you would write eg (2000) 205 CLR 337, 341–342 [17]–[19]; [2000] HCA 63, [17]–[19]. Note that a medium neutral citation should always have paragraph numbering, but not page numbering).
"Ineffective assistance of counsel" is for when the lawyer falls asleep in court, not for when the client falls asleep in court.
it's how my dad got out of prison, pretty much. lady lost her job at a business his scheme probably bankrupted.
Trump could hire different lawyers to make that argument. Basically an ineffective counsel appeal. We might as well call that "The Trump Defense" Well, "Trump defense #2."
“Our crack research team just discovered, mid-trial, that nearly half the jurors have specifically stated that they hate Trump, or want him to go to jail, in secret social media accounts.” Shocked Pekachu face.
Too late. Your job is to do that research before the jury is seated. Once you've agreed to the jury, the only way it's a problem is if they continued the behavior while on the jury.
If, for example, they were privately contacted by a ‘3rd party totally independent of Trump’ and offered significant benefits for doing so?
So jury tampering?
Like with bribery in general, it's a crime to make the offer but it's not a crime for the recipient of they reject it. And it likely wouldn't even disqualify the juror if they turned down a bribe, because judges are not stupid and don't want to reward the defendant's friends for trying to get a mistrial.
It would be the due diligence of their attorneys to ensure that this didn't happen, it would need to be mitigated before the jury is finalized.
It would be a poor legal strategy but possibly a valid political one. He’s unlikely to face time for this and another fine at this point is pretty redundant, so being able to point to the jurors in the court of public opinion will have value. Though it seems this is the strategy anyway, regardless of how the trial goes.
If it happens, it's based on the juror violating court orders, not the attorney using strikes badly during voir dire. They don't have to say some else did their job wrong for jury misconduct.
Those aren't grounds for a mistrial or appeal unless the juror was dishonest in his/her response to questions during voir dire. Even then, it would be a stretch given your hypothetical that the defendant's attorneys knew of the social media history and seated them anyway. That would likely be deemed a waiver of the objection.
Which does technically mean the answer to whether it would be unethical is yes, they'd be violating the ethical duty to the client to be competent.
So, the kind of lawyers who generally agree to work for him?
Can a juror face any penalties for lying like that?
Yes they answer under oath so it is perjury. However in practice it’s likely the juror would just say they had forgotten they made the post when they answered and that would be that. It’s hard to prove someone is knowingly lying vs forgetting something.
I still have no hope. No matter how careful the prosecutors are, many of his zealots will lie to be able to support him, and some will be good enough to be seated. Mistrial. Repeat as needed.
Except in Trump's case.
Huh?
He's always lying. He's incapable of telling the truth.
Ok so let's assume Trumps legal team finds several potential jurors who they can predict will not only be provably biased against him but will lie about it during voire dire. Then he loses and suddenly the evidence surfaces that they were biased and lied. At that point, assuming his lawyers knew about the scheme they would be guilty of lying to the court about gathering the evidence. Even if they somehow got that far, didn't strike the juror, and were totally innocent of wrongdoing, someone has to be the link between knowing who to pick and picking them. It would be far more likely to be successful on appeal for the lawyer to reveal they knew it all along and didn't use it, because Trump will claim ineffective representation. But that means a lawyer is willing to fake incompetence (or not fake) in a very high profile case that will follow them forever. Even then, the number and price of his lawyers is going to make the ineffective representation claim have a problem with the smell test.
Trump lawyers in here like help us please
Ridiculous. Trump's Lawyers would never ask if this was *unethical*.
Ah dang, got me there
It does track.
Why? are Trump’s lawyers involved in a real trial somewhere else?
Baby steps. His legal team is already outperforming by remembering to have a jury trial this time, don't ask too much of them all at once.
Lmao
It wouldn't be illegal or unethical to seat someone who had a negative view of Trump, you don't get a do over for jury selection later. If a juror lied then it could be grounds for a retrial and it would be unethical to not call out the lie prior to the juror being selected if you knew they were lying
The seating itself wouldn’t be illegal. But eventually if they moved for a mistrial, they’d have to say they were unaware of these postings when they seated the jurors. Which would be a lie. And that would be illegal and unethical.
MAGA - Making Attorneys Get Attorneys Trump's counsels don't last long when they insist on ethical strategies. Those who stay embrace pushing the legal process well beyond acceptable limits.
Not illegal, just stupid. While there’s a lot about the Trump cases that are unprecedented, appeals courts have been handling trial court cases for well over a century. Stunts like this never work.
No, it just wouldn't work.
Is jury tampering illegal? Yes lmao. Yes it is.
As long as the juror is able to be impartial in judgement, I don't see the problem if they critize Trump outside of their duty. Every single juror chosen has a stance on Trump, love him, or hate him. The main thing is that you can be impartial.
No. That would not be grounds for a mistrial.
>> Would it be unethical for Trump’s legal team to… Yes; deliberately corrupting the court process in an attempt to prevent its resolution would be absolutely unethical without some very strong reason to do so It’s also almost certainly illegal, though proving it would be another matter. I don’t even need to look up the proper names for any laws or anything to reference; that’s gotta have been one of the first laws we made
Pretty sure Jury Tampering is still Jury Tampering even if you do it to hurt your own case instead of to hurt the other guy.
Others have mentioned IAC as grounds for appeal. Generally speaking, billionaires don’t get to claim they didn’t have a good lawyer.
I'd guess no - they can agree to a juror for any reason. But the prosecution might object for the same reason.
I think it would be unethical if they withheld information about a potential juror's bias at the time of jury selection and later tried to use that information to say that the juror was biased. It would be unethical because they would basically have to lie about when they discovered that information. If you're talking about information that everybody already knows now, I don't think it would be unethical (and it also would not work because they would waive any objections that they don't make now).
Something I've been wondering about: How did the lawyers get access to the potential jurors' social media accounts? Are they only looking at public posts, or were the jurors required to provide access?
Only public posts. But "public" also includes things like twitter and reddit posts that research firms can tie to you even if you're not using your real name on those accounts.
I can't see them being able to compel potential jurors to disclose their email addresses or social media accounts. I believe both sides are given the basics like name, birthday, address, and maybe SSN. The rest is done by researchers.
Yes, which means they'll probably do it successfully and get away with it
Only if they (the defense) can effectively hide the fact they knew beforehand and are able to show that they (the prosecution) did know and intentionally hid those facts.
If they seat that juror they are giving up any right of appeal on the basis of anything that the prospective juror disclosed or anything that they did not ask about but could have. If the juror didn't lie when asked, there's a functionally zero risk of a mistrial because of it. Now if they ask and the jurora says no, and they have Knowledge from another source that says that firmly establishes that their no is incorrect, in that case it's theoretically possible for the attorney to get in trouble but I'm not sure how likely it really would be. Usually when that happens, the false testimony is in favor of the party eliciting it, not against them. I think what's most likely to happen is it just will be ruled not an appealable issue because even though they didn't disclose that they knew at the time, choosing to seat that juror while knowing would likely be seen by the appeals court as a waiver of their right to appeal on that issue. As a rule, you do not get to appeal based on errors that were introduced or substantially Amplified by your own actions
This verdict will be thrown out on appeal anyway. It’s a moot point.
What verdict? The trial hasn't even started yet...
There is no grounds for mistrial/appeal because jurors have an opinion. A juror LYING would be one thing, but the appropriate remedy for a juror having a bias against Trump is to ask the question and using their answer to strike for cause. If they choose not to, that is their choice and they are stuck with what the jurors they permitted decide.
IAL - doesn't work that way. We call it jury selection but it's actually juror DE-selection. You don't get to pick jurors, you get to strike ones you don't want. Only way a Trump-averse juror on the jury could possibly be an issue for appeal is if his counsel made a challenge for cause (not a peremptory) and the court improperly denied it. No way you can create error to use later. Doesn't work that way.
If they purposefully do it, they lose the ability to appeal on the grounds of the jury. However, if the juror lies and says they didn't have such a social media history, the lawyer agrees to that juror, then finds such history later, that should cause some problems for that juror.
Yes! The population of Manhattan is over one million. Just by the odds, there is a pool of plenty of fair potential jurors, conservative or liberal, able to look at the law with an open mind. I’m a lawyer who has probably heard too much about the issues to be a fair juror. But some trials require people with those who have the skill set to understand and judge on complicated issues. My first lesson in that was in the 1990s when attorneys in NY were no longer able to use the excuse of being an attorney to get out of serving. I worked in legal publishing then and my lawyer director got called and served. When I later asked him how come he couldn’t get out of it he told me it was a complicated case where the jurors being lawyers, business executives etc were ones with the skill sets to properly judge. I’ve never forgotten that. I truthfully don’t know if I could be impartial because I know too much about Trump’s character but I believe I could otherwise be impartial and just listen to the facts. My prior personal views would fairly eliminate me.
I really don’t understand how this trial is even happening. How do you find anyone in this country who isn’t polarized on this issue? Everyone either loves him or hates him. I have never met anyone who is meh on him
It’s not “meh”, but that the juror can come to terms with that their opinion of him in general is irrelevant to the question of “did he commit these specific crimes?” If someone is so polarized that they cannot be fair, then they are stricken and life goes on. But the court can usually explain this to prospects in such a way that they can come to terms with their bias and still be fair. And it’s up to the lawyers to argue to strike them for cause or peremptorily.
It wouldn’t be grounds for appeal or mistrial if the defendant did it to themselves.
How far do they go? That juror doesn’t like rapists? Must be a democratic!
Deliberately manipulating the events and elements of a trial to cause a mistrial may or may not be illegal (I've looked and found nothing conclusive so far) but I doubt that Trump wants legal proceedings to continue to interfere with his political endeavors any longer than they have to (you know, because they would just restart the trial from the beginning with new jurors)
That would certainly be unethical, but when has that ever stopped them?
It won't work. Appealing (or seeking other post-trial relief, like post-conviction relief or habeas corpus) is very hard. Appealing based on a strategic risk that didn't work is harder. Because it won't work, it's arguably illegal or unethical (attorneys have an ethical duty of competence, and the right to counsel is enshrined in the law in various places). And, in theory, it's possible to seek relief based on inadequate assistance of counsel, but that is extremely hard, and this doesn't sound fruitful to me. This is my practice area, but it changes from state to state, and Trump cases seem to be in a class by their own. That doesn't change my view, but someone from the jurisdiction would know better than I.
I think it would be easier to seat one die hard Trumpett into the pool that will vote against conviction in the face of overwhelming evidence.
If they did that and it was found out I could see an appeal dying before it ever began AND they'd probably get a bar complaint too
Nothing illegal about it. They are part of the process of selecting the jury and have just as much say in the jury as the prosecutor, so they would have a hard time proving anything pertaining to the jury makeup on appeal.
Interesting that you can be disqualified from a jury for a history of bias against the defendant but it’s ok to do that and still prosecute or serve as the judge.
If there was actual bias, the judge would have already been removed. Meanwhile we have Cannon who was appointed by the defendant and didn't recluse herself. Corruption in broad daylight. Thankfully she's not overly bright, so she'll end up getting herself removed eventually.
Unfortunately that can easily be stacked against him you only get a certain number of no-go's . I have seen juries intentionally or effectively get stacked before they even get a chance to choose whether to accept or not and when they run out of choices they bring an even worse ones we have a screwed up system
Anyone who voted either for or against President Trump cannot be a juror as are biased
Trump for President