Trump ordered to pay $350 million for fraudulent business practices in New York

[Schadrach]

Trump has little reason to complain. I'd be trilled if I did a coup but the only thing I suffered punishment for was chicanery about paying off a porn star.

He's got criminal trials still to come, so it may not be the only thing.

Slight exaggeration in my memory, it was only life in prison: " You'll never see a light of day ever again "

16-year-old Oklahoma teenager beaten to death in a bathroom.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/nex-benedict-everything-we-know-about-16-year-old-oklahoma-students-death

forums.escapistmagazine.com

I wasn't sure if you were talking about Nex or that fight between the black and white high school girls that made the rounds on social media some weeks ago where the white girl started shit with a much bigger black girl and the black girl beat her nearly to death. A lot of the videos going around were cut to not show the lead up to imply that the black girl was just beating the shit out of the white girl out of nowhere. Lots of overtly racist sorts describing her as a savage animal that needed to be put down and the like.

It was clear that Rittenhouse was going to get off before any witness said anything. I personally was pointing this out ages before the case even started. The LAWS say this.

Well, yeah, because we also had all kinds of footage an the like. He tried to flee from the first conflict, was chased, someone else fired a shot, he turned, and the person chasing him lunged for his gun. The second one knocked him to the ground and was moving in to beat him with an improvised weapon. I figured those two were going to be self defense as a given. The third one I thought he had a decent chance of being convicted for, right up until Grosskreutz himself said in court that he lowered his hands and was pointing his gun at Rittenhouse when Rittenhouse shot him.

This isn't a state with stand your ground, you have a duty to flee if doing so is reasonable, which is why Rittenhouse ran from the first guy instead of just gunning him down the moment he got aggressive.

Both sides gerrymander... And there's no real fair way to make district lines (even John Oliver episode said as much).

They do, though GOP have on the whole been more aggressive and more effective at it. As for no fair way, there are several mathematical procedures one could follow that slice up a state in a fashion that maximizes compactness and does not consider political affiliation or demographics at all, which only fails to be "fair" in cases where the argument is that carving out a district specifically to advantage one demographic (such as majority-minority districts) is deemed desirable rather than an example of packing and cracking. Basically the problem is entirely solvable so long as trying to arrange districts based on race, political affiliation, etc isn't a goal. For example least split line.

There will always be those, but its been a long time since I heard someone legit say that Elvis is still alive.

To be fair, even if Elvis faked his death, he probably wouldn't be alive today, since that would make him 89. My personal favorite conspiracy theory regarding someone faking their death would be Andy Kaufman, because I could entirely see him laughing to himself about that and never revealing himself because it would ruin the bit.

 

[Agema]

He's got criminal trials still to come, so it may not be the only thing.

Except he possibly hasn't got other trials to come.

Various justices have made it unlikely any will see light of day before the election, and potentially (if Trump wins) even before he takes office. If Trump wins, the new DoJ regime will instantly shut down the federal cases and the Georgia case will probably be parked for his term, with a fair chance it will also end up retired over the next four years.

One can talk as Tstorm does about the resilience of the US democratic system to even elect a convicted felon and I'd accept that. However, I think courts should consider it appropriate that voters get to see candidates accused of serious crimes tested in court, particularly when there is also a risk that being elected allows criminals to evade justice. Whilst the courts have no explicit duty to see that people aiming for election have their court cases heard before election or taking office, I have doubts that this slow-walking is healthy legal and democratic practice.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Did you read this thread?

Do you at all think this helps your case here?

Anyway, I can understand that YOU think it's self-defence. I think it's an overreaction to a small-sized incident. It's like Israel wanting to defend itself against Hamas. Great, go ahead Israel. What has that got to do with the current War in Gaza? Because what's happening is a massively outsized overreaction to a few thousand people and is just hurting innocent people

I would absolutely say that Rittenhouse could defend himself. With a gun? Not from the footage I've seen. But then, as I said, my opinion doesn't matter. The US law states that you can shoot anybody as long as they seem mildly threatening. And, due to the laws mismatch with societal expectations in the US, the citizenry generally agrees with me. But then the laws weren't created by the citizenry, they were created by the NRA for specific gun owners

Yeah, most of the people describe when it's OK to shoot people and in at least a decent amount (if not majority), it's OK to shoot someone in Rittenhouse's situation.

In the first shooting, the guy was chasing Rittenhouse and trying to take his gun. I don't see how that is not self-defense (just plain moral/ethics regardless of law). Guess what someone can do when they take your gun? In the 3rd shooting, the guy that got shot literally admitted to pointing a gun at Rittenhouse, that's self-defense. The 2nd shooting is the only one where it I could see there being some grey area, but it was a group of people with a weapon and looking to beat him up.

That's not what US law states...

According to you, Rittenhouse could've just went there and started shooting if like a bird shit on him and he got scared. And if the law did work like that, then we wouldn't have trials because you can just say you were scared.

They do, though GOP have on the whole been more aggressive and more effective at it. As for no fair way, there are several mathematical procedures one could follow that slice up a state in a fashion that maximizes compactness and does not consider political affiliation or demographics at all, which only fails to be "fair" in cases where the argument is that carving out a district specifically to advantage one demographic (such as majority-minority districts) is deemed desirable rather than an example of packing and cracking. Basically the problem is entirely solvable so long as trying to arrange districts based on race, political affiliation, etc isn't a goal. For example least split line.

In the "squares" section, they explain how just evenly dividing the state and/or populations doesn't work.

 

[Bedinsis]

You surely understand the difficulty in taking an action publicly disapproved of by 85% of your community, especially when the judge is effectively telling you to do it.

The judge ruled that the jury should be anonymous save for the people directly involved in the case, so if there actually was any fear for retaliation that ought to have been assuaged.

 

[tstorm823]

I will accept that the sympathies of the jury matter in a close call. Trump surely started with more entries in the negatives column on this, and his conduct throughout the case would only have been likely to alienate the jury even more. But nevertheless, a simpler likelihood is just that the defence ran a poor case: indeed, there is a huge amount of comment that the defence was incoherent and ineffectual. Perhaps the perils of the defence team serving a man more interested in settling personal scores and playing to a wider audience for his election campaign than he is fighting the prosecution in front of him.

To be fair to the defense, they went in intending to dispute what would ultimately make the charges criminal, and were disallowed witnesses that weren't related to the business records. They wanted to ask an expert on election finances about the law he wasn't charged with breaking, and the judge said no since he wasn't charged with that, even though the thing he was charged depended on those.

 

[Trunkage]

Well, yeah, because we also had all kinds of footage an the like. He tried to flee from the first conflict, was chased, someone else fired a shot, he turned, and the person chasing him lunged for his gun. The second one knocked him to the ground and was moving in to beat him with an improvised weapon. I figured those two were going to be self defense as a given. The third one I thought he had a decent chance of being convicted for, right up until Grosskreutz himself said in court that he lowered his hands and was pointing his gun at Rittenhouse when Rittenhouse shot him.

This isn't a state with stand your ground, you have a duty to flee if doing so is reasonable, which is why Rittenhouse ran from the first guy instead of just gunning him down the moment he got aggressive.

Yeah, most of the people describe when it's OK to shoot people and in at least a decent amount (if not majority), it's OK to shoot someone in Rittenhouse's situation.

In the first shooting, the guy was chasing Rittenhouse and trying to take his gun. I don't see how that is not self-defense (just plain moral/ethics regardless of law). Guess what someone can do when they take your gun? In the 3rd shooting, the guy that got shot literally admitted to pointing a gun at Rittenhouse, that's self-defense. The 2nd shooting is the only one where it I could see there being some grey area, but it was a group of people with a weapon and looking to beat him up.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US armed forces have a six-step process before they are allowed to shoot potential terrorists. Step 4 is a response to a soldier being SHOT at. Not pointed at. SHOT at. And there are more steps before the solider is allowed to shoot the potential terrorist

The Castle Doctrine completely breaks any form of gun safety. That's the specific reason it was created. This is one of the laws I was talking about

The third person should have had a right to pull his gun because the only person being incredibly dangerous at that moment was Rittenhouse, the other two died. Normal common sense would dictate that Rittenhouse needed to be stopped before he hurts anyone else. But no. Castle doctrine deletes any common sense

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

One of Trump's lawyers is now complaining that the prosecution failed to call witnesses favorable to the defense.

Which is, you know, the defense team's job.

I'd love to go with Occam's Razor on this, but I smell a mistrial ploy.

 

[Agema]

They wanted to ask an expert on election finances about the law he wasn't charged with breaking, and the judge said no since he wasn't charged with that, even though the thing he was charged depended on those.

I'm not sure that's really true.

I'm not great at reading legalese, but it seems the judge ruled that the witness was not allowed to testify on those things because doing so would be directing the jury on matters of law - which I'm guessing is a major problem because that's the job of the judge. Also, his rationale appears to say that Trump's lawyers previously attempted to call the same witness for the much the same argument in another one of his trials, and it was refused there. So it will hardly have been a surprise here.

 

[Gergar12]

At worst Trump will be in a trailer at a prison protected by the Secret Service, at best he will win the presidency and pardon himself because of the two-tier justice system. But he's already old and has already done damage to this country mostly because Hillary supporters are insufferable idiots in big blue cities and people who called Bernie supporters sexist.

 

[tstorm823]

I'm not sure that's really true.

I'm not great at reading legalese, but it seems the judge ruled that the witness was not allowed to testify on those things because doing so would be directing the jury on matters of law - which I'm guessing is a major problem because that's the job of the judge. Also, his rationale appears to say that Trump's lawyers previously attempted to call the same witness for the much the same argument in another one of his trials, and it was refused there. So it will hardly have been a surprise here.

There are a bunch of things about the witness that were brought up, some more reasonable than others. The one in particular I think worth considering is this:

In its current motions as to Points II and III, the People seek to preclude the Defendant from offering any evidence or argument that the FEC dismissed complaints against the Defendant regarding allegations that he committed campaign finance violations. People's Memo at pg. 19

The People's motion is GRANTED. That the FEC dismissed the complaint against Defendant and the DOJ decided against prosecuting Defendant for potential FEC violations are probative of nothing. These matters are therefore irrelevant and Defendant is precluded from eliciting testimony or introducing evidence about both.

The prosecution's charges rest in part on the claim that Trump violated federal campaign laws outside that court's jurisdiction, and the judge barred the defense from even presenting the argument (let alone the witness) that the FEC, who has the jurisdiction to enforce those statutes, received complaints about this and dismissed them. They wanted to call a former member of and longtime advisor to the FEC to testify about what that law is and that they were dismissed, and the judge forbade it.

https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/pdfs/Dec%20on%20People's%20MIL.pdf

 

[Agema]

The prosecution's charges rest in part on the claim that Trump violated federal campaign laws outside that court's jurisdiction, and the judge barred the defense from even presenting the argument (let alone the witness) that the FEC, who has the jurisdiction to enforce those statutes, received complaints about this and dismissed them.

The judge notes that the decision of another body whether to pursue a case or not offers no key evidence of whether a crime has occurred. I suspect that this is also at least on the boundary of the defence attempting to direct the jury on a point of law, which is the prerogative of the judge.

 

[tstorm823]

The judge notes that the decision of another body whether to pursue a case or not offers no key evidence of whether a crime has occurred.

It does though. If it were two equal powers where one brought the case and the other didn't, sure, that wouldn't be much of an argument. But the enforcement bodies that could charge him for this dismissed the complaints, while the State of New York, who can't charge him for that crime, claims he committed it, and also claims they don't have to prove it.

Cohen started paying Daniels about this in 2011. There's nothing but opinion on whether that continuing in 2016 should be legally required to be labelled a campaign expense, and they were barred from presenting any opinion higher than the judge's. We can both see how this goes to appeal.

Edit: Like just recently, Harvey Weinstein, who committed heinous sex crimes, had his conviction overturned in the courts of the same state, specifically because the prosecutor used uncharged crimes in their case. Do you imagine that same appeals court is going to let them base a case on uncharged crimes that they can't prove, where the judge bars the defense from even mentioning he wasn't charged for them and then tells the jury they don't have to agree whether those crimes took place, so long as they agree that a crime took place somewhere?

 

[Satinavian]

The defense just did a horrible job. They were not able to put up a plausible alternative story to present in their closing argument. Their prime witness was pretty unhinged. They often stalled and meandered as if they didn't have a plan. They didn't even manage to make Cohen, a known perjurer look untrustworthy to the jury. They failed so hard in cross examination that the persecution didn't use some other witnesses and ended it when his testimony was still fresh - they obviously hadn't planned for the defense to be that ineffective.

Might there have been another result if Trump had not had bumbling idiots for attorneys ? Maybe. But that does not make the trial unfair or unvalid.

Do you imagine that same appeals court is going to let them base a case on uncharged crimes that they can't prove, where the judge bars the defense from even mentioning he wasn't charged for them and then tells the jury they don't have to agree whether those crimes took place, so long as they agree that a crime took place somewhere?

We will see.

But this particular point is really something for the appeals court to decide, not for the jury as it purely a matter of interpretation of law. So denying that witness testimony was still the correct move.

 

[Agema]

It does though.

You can say that, but the judge says otherwise and I feel his opinion counts for more than yours. Nor is it hard to see his rationale, because there are numerous reasons a case may not be pursued.

We can both see how this goes to appeal.

Yes, an appeals court is exactly the place it should go and who should look at it with a higher level of scrutiny, rather than allowing a witness in to undermine the judge. Process matters. As long as there is viable reasoning for a case, I would say it is the responsibility of a judge to entertain the case and allow a higher court to examine the technicalities rather than take it upon themselves to shut down what might actually be reasonable prosecutions. Essentially, if you like, the legal equivalent of "This needs to be escalated to my manager". This is not a problem.

At core, however, the basic fact is that Trump is a crook. Just arguably in this specific instance misdemeanour-level crooked rather than felony-level crooked.

 

[tstorm823]

You can say that, but the judge says otherwise and I feel his opinion counts for more than yours. Nor is it hard to see his rationale, because there are numerous reasons a case may not be pursued.

That's why you bring in the witness!

 

[Schadrach]

In the "squares" section, they explain how just evenly dividing the state and/or populations doesn't work.

Making a crack about how just drawing a grid doesn't work because people don't live in a grid is basically irrelevant, in much the same way as that bit where he found a single DMV office that was only open on 5th Wednesdays of the month and used it to pretend like it was an example of people actively being prevented from accessing the DMV for ID as a form of voter suppression - in that case he was pointing at a part time extension office and pretending that there wasn't a main office open 6 days a week about 15 minutes away.

Likewise, least split line isn't drawing a grid and just hoping that people happen to live in an arrangement that matches the grid. If anything "The Thin Line" bit immediately afterward is a better argument against it, but then you hit the "is grouping all the blacks/Latinos/whatever in one district a good majority minority district or a bad packing and cracking district?" and "should we be drawing district lines based on race anyways?" questions while a method like least split line does not consider race at all. Probably the best argument I can think of against shortest splitline is that in states that have one utterly huge population center and a lot of rural area around that the rural area can have its influence minimized as the lines will kinda resemble pizza slices including part of that population center and a large section of rural territory each

And you have to evenly divide the population, into pieces that each have a single uninterrupted border - that's how House districts work, it's just a matter of how you slice the pizza. Least split line slices the pizza around compactness, as opposed to slicing the pizza around grouping people by race as in the thin line example, or based on party as is most typical for gerrymandering.

Here's CGP Grey talking about that method (though he screws up his examples and doesn't actually use the shortest splitline in at least two places - there is a shorter line possible):

Practically, since the census is based on census regions you'd solve the "line slices your house in half" problem by snapping the line to the closest census region boundary, which is not-coincidentally also how your population data is divided as opposed to the west/north side of the line answer suggested on rangevoting.org.

The Castle Doctrine completely breaks any form of gun safety. That's the specific reason it was created. This is one of the laws I was talking about

The third person should have had a right to pull his gun because the only person being incredibly dangerous at that moment was Rittenhouse, the other two died. Normal common sense would dictate that Rittenhouse needed to be stopped before he hurts anyone else. But no. Castle doctrine deletes any common sense

The Castle Doctrine is irrelevant to the Rittenhouse case. It only applies when you are in your home and someone has unlawfully entered. In which case you are authorized to use force to defend you and yours and do not have a duty to flee, but the line is at the threshold not on a street the next town over.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US armed forces have a six-step process before they are allowed to shoot potential terrorists. Step 4 is a response to a soldier being SHOT at. Not pointed at. SHOT at. And there are more steps before the solider is allowed to shoot the potential terrorist

The Castle Doctrine completely breaks any form of gun safety. That's the specific reason it was created. This is one of the laws I was talking about

The third person should have had a right to pull his gun because the only person being incredibly dangerous at that moment was Rittenhouse, the other two died. Normal common sense would dictate that Rittenhouse needed to be stopped before he hurts anyone else. But no. Castle doctrine deletes any common sense

The Rules of Engagement vary depending on the military operation. Not many people are gonna agree with you that you have to be shot at first before being able to fire your gun.

And who doesn't agree with the Castle Doctrine? Not even like John Oliver would do a show on how awful the Castle Doctrine is unless there's some weird loophole in it or something, the basic intention is agreed upon by like everyone. If somebody is robbing your house in the middle of the night, you have to wait for them to attack/shot before you can defend yourself? That doesn't make any sense. Also, like Schadrach said, that didn't apply in the Rittenhouse case anyways.

Rittenhouse after getting in 2 incidents still had the frame of mind to not have an itchy trigger finger. In that situation and at his age, he did exactly what you're supposed to do. He never initiated being a threat to someone else. Again, it's extremely agreed upon by the vast majority of people that you can shoot someone if they pull their gun on you. A single bullet can obviously be a kill shot and/or greatly injure you, it's ridiculous to allow someone to have first dibs at a death blow before you can defend yourself.

Making a crack about how just drawing a grid doesn't work because people don't live in a grid is basically irrelevant, in much the same way as that bit where he found a single DMV office that was only open on 5th Wednesdays of the month and used it to pretend like it was an example of people actively being prevented from accessing the DMV for ID as a form of voter suppression - in that case he was pointing at a part time extension office and pretending that there wasn't a main office open 6 days a week about 15 minutes away.

Likewise, least split line isn't drawing a grid and just hoping that people happen to live in an arrangement that matches the grid. If anything "The Thin Line" bit immediately afterward is a better argument against it, but then you hit the "is grouping all the blacks/Latinos/whatever in one district a good majority minority district or a bad packing and cracking district?" and "should we be drawing district lines based on race anyways?" questions while a method like least split line does not consider race at all. Probably the best argument I can think of against shortest splitline is that in states that have one utterly huge population center and a lot of rural area around that the rural area can have its influence minimized as the lines will kinda resemble pizza slices including part of that population center and a large section of rural territory each

And you have to evenly divide the population, into pieces that each have a single uninterrupted border - that's how House districts work, it's just a matter of how you slice the pizza. Least split line slices the pizza around compactness, as opposed to slicing the pizza around grouping people by race as in the thin line example, or based on party as is most typical for gerrymandering.

Here's CGP Grey talking about that method (though he screws up his examples and doesn't actually use the shortest splitline in at least two places - there is a shorter line possible):

Practically, since the census is based on census regions you'd solve the "line slices your house in half" problem by snapping the line to the closest census region boundary, which is not-coincidentally also how your population data is divided as opposed to the west/north side of the line answer suggested on rangevoting.org.

There is a thing about keeping communities together, people just do naturally segregate themselves to a certain degree by whatever; race, culture, income, ethnicity, politics/ideology, etc. If you split say a latino area (using the shortest line method there), you might end up splitting that community into pieces where they are now the minority in the say 3 districts they got split into and don't have much of a say in their districts then. And you do have physical land issues like a river and if you split that area up where the people near the river are minorities in all their districts, you might not get funding to properly maintain the levies or something. I'd be guessing that method overall would be better than the current district splits but it's not some perfect solution either.

 

[Agema]

That's why you bring in the witness!

Read the judge's explanation, also the rationale employed by a previous judge.

It seems to me to say that the witness is not being brought in to offer direct, personal experience of why the case was not pursued at a federal level. He is seemingly being brought in to offer an interpretation of law, which the judges viewed as "improper" by seeking to instruct the jury on a point of law.

 

[CaitSeith]

- they obviously hadn't planned for the defense to be that ineffective.

Maybe they should had. Honestly I can't tell if the defense is that dumb, or if it's that good at playing dumb; because, I don't think that winning the trial would had railed his followers as much as the loss has.

 

[Agema]

Maybe they should had. Honestly I can't tell if the defense is that dumb, or if it's that good at playing dumb; because, I don't think that winning the trial would had railed his followers as much as the loss has.

I think there's a possibility that the defence lawyers had their hands tied by their client.

For instance, your client might insist you try to prove that witnesses are lying, even if it is ineffective, possibly even counterproductive. Maybe you could basically concede the crime and instead argue to have the charges downgraded from a felony to misdemeanour, but your client refuses to concede an inch. And, well, your client is paying, so maybe you just do the best with the limitations they have set.

I suspect that's what a lot of Trump's lawyers, employees and so on are like: people who will just do what Trump wants, irrespective of whether what they are being asked to do is illegal, immoral, or incompetent.