The verdict convicting Trump is out, the democrats are happy, for now they can call Trump a convicted felon, yet there is steep price to pay in damage done to the Constitution of the United States.
Alvin Bragg ran his campaign for Manhattan District Attorney on a platform of criminal justice reform and of getting Trump, nothwithstanding that previous Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance, Jr. found no crimes and declined Trump's prosecution, same as the federal prosecutors who found no election law violations.
In Soviet Union, chief of infamous NKVD once said "show me the man and I show you his crime". What Bragg promised with respect to Trump did not fall far away from the famous statement of Beria. To achieve his aim, Bragg enlisted former Biden administration federal prosecutor, Matthew Colangelo, who's role is now investigated by the U.S. Congress's Judiciary Committee. Colangelo also aided NY Attorney General Letitia James in the civil lawsuit against Trum and/or his businesses.
The case against Trump was weak, no clear leagal theory behind it, yet Bragg did not worry much for it was Manhattan were Trump is hated and lost his election in 2020 in New York County in crushing numbers. The democrats know that the verdict of conviction will not withstand the appelate scrutiny, if not in Appelate Division, which is located in Manhattan, than definitely in NYS Court of Appeals, based in Albany, which is much more resistant to the pressure from Mnhatanites, and gives more respect the legal issues than necessities of political campaigns.
There were various strange and irregular things occuring in this trial. First, the judge has not been selected randomely, whether by way of lottery or other random means, instead he was handpicked by the Chief Administrative Judge, I believe. Judge Merchan, who is only an acting judge, has handled a criminal trial against the Trump Organization, which incidentally I have observed personally on most of the days, and he must have pleased the Chief Administrative Judge with the way he handled it. Yet, it turned out later that Judge Merchan has been a donor to Biden's presidental campaign, whereas his daughter works for various democrats' election campaigns. If that was not a clear conflict of interest, then definitely there was an appearance of it. The defendant's motion that Judge Merchan recuse himself from the trial was denied by judge Merchan himself, as well as was denied by him the motion to change venue, which was filed on the basis of impossibility of getting a fair to defendant a pool of jurors in Manhattan. Judge Merchan prevented defense's expert on election law Bradley Smith from giving testimony at the trial, what turned out to be fatal for the defense for he was to give testimony that there was no violation of election law, and I believe the jury never was told about it, yet Judge Merchan allowed prosecution to claim violation of election law as one of the underlying crimes. Also, Judge Merchan did not allow the defense, from what I hear, to submit tax evidence, yet Judge Merchan allowed the prosecution to claim violation of tax law as one of the underlying crimes. In ruling on the objections during the trial, Judge Merchan was very liberal toward the prosecution, yet he sternly sustained dominant majority of defense's objections. Let us not forget the apparent prejudice to defendant caused by the famous and salacious testimony of Stormy Daniels.
What is most important and damning, it appears that both 6th and 7th Amendments to the Constitution of the United States have been violated in instructions given by Judge Merchan to the jurors, notwithstanding that the jurors were from Manhattan and already biased against Trump, as evidenced by the results of last presidential elections in New York County.
6th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States contains a requirement of unanimity, which applies both to federal as well as state criminal trials guilty verdicts (see Ramos v. Louisiana 590 U.S. 83 (2020). In Andres v. U.S., 333 U.S. 740 (1948) the Supreme Court ruled that unanimity applies to both 6th and 7th Amendments to the Constitution, and in criminal case the unanimity extends to all issues.
7th Amendement to the U.S. Constitution contains a right of the defendant to know his accuser, the nature of the charges and evidence against him. Yet, Manhattan DA included in the indictment only 34 counts of falsifying business records (which in itself was not enough to convict, due to the fact that statute of limitations for the misdemeanor crimes expired), whereas it not contained any of the underlying charges (i.e. violation of election laws, violation of tax laws, or defrauding of voters) which were necessary to raise the 34 counts of falsifying business records from misdemeanor to felony, in order to have those 34 counts within the statute of limitations, which did not expire for the felony at the time of filing the indictment.
Judge Merchan jury charges required the unanimity on the 34 counts of falsifying business records, yet they did not require, as we hear from all the reports, the unanimity on underlying crimes, as far as the jurors found violation of any of the underlying crimes (i.e. some of them might find violation of election laws, others on violation of tax laws, and the remaining jurors on defrauding the voters) so each of the jurors must have found violation of one of the underlying crimes, but not necessarily the same.
The above jury instructions appear to be in violation of the 6th Amendment as unanimity extends to all issues in criminal trials, and in violation of the 7th Amendment, as defendant's right to know all the crimes was violated, since the underlying crimes were not contained in the indictment.
Apparently, many of the liberal democrats are conscious of the violations of the Constitution, yet they will not articulate it publicly for the need to prevent Trump from winning the election is so overwhelming. Right after the conviction verdict was published by the jury, Jake Tapper on CNN articulated it by saying that it is important to sway at least several percent of the Trump voters from voting for him on November 5 since the Trump lead is in single digits.
It appears that democrats know that the verdict will eventually be stricken, yet in all likelihood it will not happen before November 5, 2024, the day of the presidential elections. If Biden is reelected, what appears to be a violation of the Constitution of the United States would have paid off. Anything to prevent Trump from being reelected. Trump is not a likable person, but the charges levied against him, would never have been filed against anybody else. Nobody is above the law, but so much for equal justice under the law...
