'Confused' Judge Cannon needed concept explained 'slowly' to her in court by lawyers: NYT

theprogressivist @lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 669 points – 'Confused' Judge Cannon needed concept explained 'slowly' to her in court by lawyers: NYT
rawstory.com

As part of an analysis of how U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, reports from her courtroom show a judge who is both "prickly" and" insecure" and often has trouble understanding what lawyers from both sides try to explain to her.

The controversial Cannon -- who has been accused of slow-walking Donald Trump's obstruction of justice trial related to his alleged illegal retention of government documents -- in recent hearings has pressed lawyers to remake their points over and over, which led to the New York Times' Alan Feuer to question whether, "she does not understand the answers she is receiving or is trying to push back against them."

"Only the best," am I right?

89

She needs to stop being a judge. She is supremely unqualified and has a clear political agenda.

She's gonna be on SCOTUS within a decade.

Please don’t use the word supreme anywhere near a description of Cannon.

Does

Aileen Cannon is supremely deserving of being appointed to the highest (lit.) court by being fired out of a cannon into the sun.

Fit your favor better?

Love the sentiment. Still concerned about tempting fate with that adverb though.

Any time anyone says "shoot X into the sun" I can't help but think of how much energy it actually takes to do so. You have to shed all momentum from the orbit to actually go into free fall.

She's only unqualified because you think that she should be fair and experienced. Neither of those attributes are desirable for trump, which is why he put her in that seat.

Hanlon's razor.

Either way, the only resolution is disbarment/impeachment.

Even if she is disbarred, it won’t matter. She will still be a federal judge.

Impeachment is the only way to correct this shitshow. She isn’t qualified to work at McDonald’s.

Hanlon's razor is dumb, especially when dealing with people known for acting in bad faith.

How is it not a conflict of interest that “Donald Trump appointed her to the lifetime position”. ? Haven’t judges been asked to recuse themselves over less? I’m genuinely confused.

I don't think that's fundamentally disqualifying. What's the proposal on who could reasonably try this case? Are appointees by political opponents okay? Only appointees pre Clinton?

The bigger problem, regardless of who is on trial, is she was never supposed to be on the bench.

Her promotion was purely ideological. It had nothing to do with her legal accumen.

It's definitely possible Trump could have found someone who was both technically skilled AND sheep dipped well enough not to be an obvious hack. But... why bother? The Senate didn't care enough to block her and they certainly aren't going to impeach her.

So democracy is working as designed.

I also don't think it's too high of a bar for the public to want a judge not appointed by the defendant for a criminal trial.

Wouldn't it be nice if the public had any say in the matter

Nah, the Founding Fathers specifically didn't want a moron like Trump running things, so this is democracy breaking down.

Is anything "fundamentally disqualifying"? It appears to me that nothing is. It's all honor code bullshit that only works when everyone is acting in good faith.

The real problem is that she was appointed in the first place. The system that made that possible was never designed to work when half the people running it are saboteurs.

In a normal court, the justices are often held in high regard, whereby whomever appointed them is hardly even a factoid.

The problem is that with Trump, he's known for quid pro quo as well as just not even knowing the person. Odds are good that Bannon slipped her name to Trump and suddenly she's "the most brilliant legal mind the nation has ever known. Just brilliant. Very smart."

Besides being nominated by Trump, I'm not sure if the prosecutors had any standing to have her recused.

I'm not sure if the prosecutors had any standing to have her recused.

Maybe not at the time, but how about now?

She was selected by the Federalist Society. Trump rubber stamped her (like he did the vast majority of appointments he made.)

GOP doesn't hire people for their qualifications, only their perceived blind loyalty to the party

often has trouble understanding

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

To me, it looks like she's feigning confusion just to give her yet another excuse to shit all over the prosecution. The defense made an absurd request, the judge acted like she was having trouble understanding until the prosecution said something out of frustration and Cannon hopped on him for it.

Serious question. No joke. no hyperbole. Outside of outright dismissing the case (which she already said she intends to do after the jury is seated, so double jeopardy attaches), has she made a single ruling that wasn't heavily in Trump's favor? Has a single dispute not ended with her somehow blaming and shitting on the prosecution?

I dunno, plain incompetence is perfectly plausible.

Take a minute to empathize with those poor worms who sufferes inside her skull.

As part of an analysis of how [...]

'How' what? Either their editors suck and missed the opening sentence or I'm just incapable of parsing English anymore.

I’m not only not shocked about it, I’m 100% that this is more then normal for judges. We pretend they are knowledgeable and experienced, as they should. But a job that is appointed is always going to fall into nepotism, taking sides and incompetence.

The language of law isn’t straightforward, which is why most of us need to hire lawyers to defend ourselves and why we need judges who are versed in the language as well. Just because someone might appear to be “good” at making tough calls or judgements does not make them a good judge.

I’m almost guessing, outside of the very strong possibility that she is incompetent, that this is a tactic. I’ve experienced many instances of someone pretending to not understand or needing something spelled out several times as a way to distract from the actual topic.

We all know if this judge was Anti-Trump, she and her family would already be hidden away by the police because of the gazillion death threats and AR-15 wielding rednecks on her driveway...

Throw it in ChatGPT to explain like she is 5, just to not waste too much time.

Sadly not that unusual. Lots of judges are . . . not great lawyers.

To be fair a judge mostly uses a slightly different skill set, practically speaking. But that doesn’t matter here, she’s objectively corrupt and terrible. Impeachment or trebuchet-to-the-sun.

What jurisdiction do you practice in, if you don't mind asking? I work in one of the bigger trial courts in the United States and have NEVER seen lawyers have to explain a concept like this to any judicial officer I've ever worked with across 5 years of trial. Aileen Cannon is a national disgrace.

Yeah this is embarrassing for her, frankly.

You don’t have appeals for stupid things judges do? Well, that sounds nice.

I’m not saying it’s endemic to hear a judge doesn’t know the law in certain situations, but it’s definitely happened. Depending on the judge - a lot.