Former President Donald Trump’s New York trial on charges of falsifying business records related to payments to porn actress Stormy Daniel was riddled with “errors” that could be reversed on appeal, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley said Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report.”
“Of those options, I think acquittal is rapidly falling out of the realm of possibility. I think it’s extremely unlikely. I think it comes down to a choice between a unanimous jury and an outright guilty verdict. I still think this is a weak enough case that we have to go in favor of a unanimous jury. But if there is a guilty verdict — and this wouldn’t necessarily be a surprise to many of us — I don’t think this can get appealed and get through before the election. You can’t jump through the New York appellate system and get to the Supreme Court. There are a lot of reversible errors here, in my view. I think they’re very serious. I don’t think Mr. Marchan can fix them all with these instructions. Every indication so far is that these instructions are going to heavily favor the prosecution.”
He added, “This system of the defence speaking first had a major drawback. For most of us who have not worked here, it is almost unthinkable because it meant the defence could not refute some of the prosecution’s very broad and, in my view, inappropriate statements. Also, the defence has an advantage today by prolonging things. They might try to keep this going until around eight o’clock, which means if the end time is seven o’clock, the last words the jury hears before their instructions will be an hour of their closing argument. That’s ideal for the prosecution.”
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