Legal expert Jonathan Turley believes the multiple jury requests signal not-so-good news for the prosecution targeting Donald Trump.
Hours after deliberations began, the 12-person jury will decide Trump’s fate in the hush money case. Two notes submitted To Judge Juan Merchan.
“For people who believe strongly in the criminal justice system and the very high standard of proof it requires, this is pretty frightening.”
In the first memo, the jurors made four requests related to the testimony of the trial’s key witnesses, David Pecker and Michael Cohen. In the second memo, the jurors asked to hear again Marchan’s complicated instructions, which took more than an hour to read Wednesday morning.
From Turley’s perspective, the memo requesting jury instructions doesn’t bode well for the prosecution.
“I’m amazed that other networks are saying, ‘Look, this is really great news that they put this out,'” he said on Fox News. “As a criminal lawyer, I don’t think this is obviously good news for the prosecution.”
“The only reason a juror would ask to hear the instructions again is if there’s a disagreement about what the instructions are,” he explained. “That indicates that there may be a disagreement among the jurors in the room about what their standard is and how they should look at the evidence.”
Turley added that the request for a transcript of Cohen’s testimony could indicate that the jury is scrutinizing Cohen’s testimony, which is important because Marchand had told jurors they could disregard his testimony if they believed he lied about material facts.
“I don’t think this is a clear benefit to the prosecution. As a defense attorney, I welcome this type of request. They were only there for a few hours and they asked to hear the instructions again and they asked to hear the core testimony,” Turley explained.
Still, a problem remains for Trump, Turley said: Marchand’s controversial directive.
“They’ve been very one-sided and have turned this into a kind of routine hunt. Judge Marchan said you could have a 4-4-4 jury. You could have three groups of jurors who essentially look at the facts differently. They may disagree about the crime behind this falsification of business records, but Judge Marchan will treat it as a unanimous verdict,” he explained. “For people who believe strongly in the criminal justice system and the very high standard of proof that it requires, this is pretty frightening.”
The trial resumed just after 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
After the jury was reselected, Judge Marchan reread the instructions, causing several jurors, including one of the jury’s two lawyers, to frantically take notes, and then the court began rereading the testimony of the called witnesses.
Jurors are expected to resume deliberations after rereading all of the requested testimony.
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