Not A Lawyer, But I’ve Read Everything John Grisham Ever Wrote. With complex matters of financial law they never go with a bench trial and a judge who understands that stuff. They go with a jury that can be flim-flammed and bamboozled, cause they can confuse them so bad there’s a hope they won’t know what to decide. Yeah, there’s some risk too…
Anyway, does this open it up for appeal, or is it just a malpractice thing?
This is a bench trial, and the judge already ruled that the fraud happened; that was last week. The trial is to hear the prosecuting side’s case and more or less determine how much fraud there was for purposes of clawing back the money.
that thing that happened last week? in which the judge ruled that trump’s businesses are no longer allowed to operate in New York? it’s the same case and the same judge.
:: hands over a coupon for a free popcorn from the concession stand ::
Entirely possible.
The judge decides on the law, and the jury, the evidence, and in this case the evidence has already been nailed down hard. 
… well he can and will appeal the judgment regardless of what it is, so this is all a rough draft
Malpractice, which does not affect the in court proceedings at all. This is civil, so there’s no ineffective assistance of counsel argument. I can’t wait until he gets criminally convicted and then argues his $1000 an hour attorneys were ineffective.
According to the NYT, it’s a bench trial “because the case was brought under a little known but powerful New York state law requiring that the matter be adjudicated at what is known as a bench trial, meaning that no jury will hear the case.”
I would be curious to know how late you can request a jury trial in NY. In the olden days you had to request a jury trial with your Answer (i.e. at the outset of the case) or it would be deemed waived, no exceptions.
Now it seems the rules are changing to give the judge discretion to allow an untimely request for jury trial, or even to require an express waiver of jury trial. If the rules in NY have softened, then it is even more of a colossal screwup. Or his lawyers are not trial attorneys and are afraid of the jury.
Well, that explains a lot.
Odds of a winning an appeal range from around 7% to 20% with an average of 14% for all private civil cases.
Given the circumstances in this case has already produced a summary judgement even before the trail began, I’d put Trump’s odds at less than 5%.
My late father’s take on this was that if you’re guilty you want a jury and if you’re innocent you don’t. While he was a lawyer, I’d take that with a grain of salt as he primarily did corporate law.
Was it on a dare?
I don’t think this is a screw up. They probably figured he was better off with an impartial judge than a hostile jury. I can’t imagine there are many Trump supporters in the Manhattan jury pool and plenty of people who would actively despise him (not just as a politician but as a sleazy real-estate businessman who doesn’t pay his bills).
Every once in a while he lands a competent one (you can usually recognize them because they’re the ones who insist on getting paid up front). But those lawyers don’t end up doing Trump any good either because he just sidelines them for telling him the things he needs to know instead of the things he wants to hear.
I need to go read the actual complaint and the law that’s involved here, because the 7th Amendment guarantees a right to a jury trial as long as the dollar value of the claim exceeds $20.
I’m not optimistic (and haven’t been since Nov. 8, 2016). He’s not hoping for an acquittal, he’s planning a coup with a duped electorate. He’s already set up his followers to expect the “rogue” Pontius Pilate will nail him to the cross, and it will be up to them to do what’s “right.”
I wonder how recognizing that the jury pool is going to be from a city where you’ve been hated for decades, and have recently spent some time on social media admitting your guilt plays into a jury trial, though…
“I wonder how Trump feels about this screw-up by his legal team.”
Anyone else would realise this is the sort of shit that happens when you fail to pay your lawyer’s interim invoices.
(Well, it’s nice to think this might be the reason.)
Yeah a New York jury isn’t exactly likely to be in the bag for Trump, and since it’s a civil trial rather than a criminal trial he’d have a harder time skating responsibility through a hung jury. A New York civil trial only needs five of six jurors to agree in order to render a verdict instead of a unanamous agreement between twelve.
His odds of prevailing in a jury trial might be better than they are now, but that’s mostly because his team has long since worn out this judge’s patience.
“It’s unclear whether a jury trial would have been available under New York Executive Law 63(12), the statute under which the case was brought, and may legal experts believe it likely would not have been. But the judge noted that neither side litigated the issue.”
I think he’s screwed either way, but there are people who like the man even in New York, and his lawyers don’t need to convince the entire jury–I believe they need to convince two of them (although IANAL)
