"No words for this": Legal experts pan Aileen Cannon's "outrageous" pro-Trump bias

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 451 points – "No words for this": Legal experts pan Aileen Cannon's "outrageous" pro-Trump bias
salon.com

Judge Cannon has appeared confused by basic legal concepts and indulged the Trump defense team's wildest arguments

Over the course of seven public hearings related to Donald Trump's classified documents case, a picture has emerged of Judge Aileen Cannon sometimes appearing prepared for legal questions but at other times having difficulty comprehending even the simplest concepts.

In the view of prosecutors and several legal experts, her tendency to repeatedly ask the same question or miss the point of an argument is proof that the Trump-appointed judge is ill-suited to handle a trial that has already been delayed, repeatedly, by her willingness to grant hearings over the Trump team's most far-fetched requests. The case's slow progress, they argue, plays into Trump's strategy of pushing it past Election Day, and then, if elected, stopping it from ever happening.

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Conservatives can't be trusted to serve in public positions. They will literally always ditch their principles – if they ever had any in the first place – to serve their political goals, naturally claiming that this is what "the left" does so it's OK for then to do it too

edit: this is why any sort of jury trial for Trump is probably doomed to fail. Any conservative jurors will favor him no matter what, and will absolutely lie about their plans to do so in the selection process

revenge of the edit: so the NY conviction was by a jury, happy surprise

Did you see trump was convicted on all counts in the NY false documents trial?

I was surprised too...

I just hadn't realized it was a jury trial, but that's definitely a positive surprise

New York yes, because Florida our Georgia will be much harder to get a conviction out of a jury.

Facts are facts bro. New York was a jury trial and the Trump team HELPED SELECT THE JURORS. This is exactly how the unbiased system is supposed to work.

The fresh round of 34 convictions was from a jury trial. Get jury selection right and he's toast

Though I agree, I think they're worried about how to select a jury that is allowed to see the evidence.

I mean, those with high enough security clearances are less likely to be seen as impartial by Drumpfs supporters. (Not that they see anything but full and undying support as impartial) and more likely (so I would suspect) to convict than those who don't have security clearances.

People at any clearance level have been asking since day one how he is still able to see sunlight. Day 1 classification training explicitly lays out penalties.

Jurors are not issued security clearances.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/trump-trial-classified-documents-public-00102023

AI summary of the process using the article and other sources -

The process of presenting classified information at a trial involves careful adherence to the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA), which provides a framework for handling such sensitive materials while balancing national security interests and the defendant's right to a fair trial.

  1. Pretrial Procedures:

    • A pretrial conference is held to discuss how classified information will be managed. The court issues protective orders to prevent unauthorized disclosures [❞] [❞].
    • The government can request to delete or redact classified information from discovery or provide unclassified summaries instead. This request is typically made in a private (ex parte) and closed (in camera) session with the judge [❞] [❞].

  2. Defense Counsel Clearance:

    • Defense attorneys often need security clearances to access classified information. Defendants typically do not receive direct access to such information, especially if it poses significant national security risks [❞] [❞].

  3. Use at Trial:

    • Before trial, defendants must notify the court of any classified information they intend to disclose. The court holds a hearing to determine the admissibility of this information, and the government may propose substitutions or redactions [❞] [❞].
    • If the court deems the classified information relevant and admissible, the government can suggest unclassified summaries or stipulations to ensure the defense can still present their case effectively [❞].

  4. Jury Considerations:

    • Jurors typically do not need security clearances. Instead, the court ensures that any classified information presented at trial is sufficiently sanitized or summarized so that it does not compromise national security but still conveys the necessary details for the case [❞].

  5. Interlocutory Appeals:

    • The government has the right to appeal pretrial court decisions that it believes improperly compel the disclosure of classified information. This is a crucial mechanism to protect sensitive information throughout the trial process [❞].

This structured approach aims to protect classified information while upholding the integrity of the judicial process.

Considering it's essentially all classified..... that's gonna be a huge pain to try and follow.

they might lie, but are they intelligent enough not to get caught? extremely unlikely. Conservatives are always super responsive to fear (because their amygdalas are wired wrong and prevent them from being creative and empathetic) so the smurt ones are going to be deterred by the consequences, and the ones who have nothing to lose are going to conceive of themselves as martyrs and believe they are innocent even though that's not what their church is probably telling them.

I think there's relatively little risk of this.

And jury selection can always try to find the few conservatives who do have a backbone. I'm sure they have to exist, despite all appearances

I just think she is lacking intelligence.

Legal experts think she is trying to help Trump. Imma go with their opinions on this one.

She is also stupid though.

Of course she is, but she's also clearly favoring Trump.

I dunno the general opinion seemed to be that she was a competent, if not particularly outstanding, judge before she started getting Trump's cases. Looks like a pretty cut and dried case of bias to me, presumably with an eye to getting a(nother) leg up in her career if he becomes president again to add a little spice of blatant corruption to the mix.

To be conservative is to be derivative and uncreative, unempathetic and lacking the ability to even conceive of another person's perspective without including the totality of their own, and because of all this they tend to come up with rationalizations for why the world is the way it is rather than actually trying to change it.

All of these are forms of intelligence. To be conservative is to be unintelligent. If your amygdala is so wired for fear that you can't even think about shit, then just accept what you are (less) and stop yelling over the rest of us, ye screeching gibbons.

That’s an interesting headline at that link. It reads to me basically as “liberals are better equipped to deal with the unfiltered real world” which tracks IMO.

Haven't people said there's a way for Jack Smith to appeal for a different judge if it's shown she isn't doing her job? Why hasn't he done that?

Because it is a Hail Mary option. He can appeal but doing so unsuccessfully ensures that Cannon switches from this passive help of the defense to being outright against the prosecution which makes things harder than they already are. A successful appeal still creates a delay in the trial because the new judge has to get up to speed.

I think at this point she's already shown that she IS outright against the prosecution.

So he's basically stuck between a rock and a heard place. Lovely. Florida justice.

It's not like she is already against prosecution. I don't believe it could be any more partisan than it already is.

As for delay her last ruling essentially made it indefinite.

If they said that, they're wrong. There are very limited circumstances that allow an appeal to the 11th circuit and she hasn't tripped those wires yet...mostly by not issuing rulings. Scheduling is not an appealable matter.

I may be wrong, but I think scheduling is an appealable matter, but only for the defense. Right to a speedy trial and whatnot.

But yeah, it's pretty obvious she's waiting to dismiss the case once a jury has been selected so she can force a double jeopardy scenario.

The justice department needs to come up with a new way to dismiss or punish federal judges who cannot remain impartial, or are so obviously abusing their positions.

According to the crowd at Lawfare not one single day has tolled on the speedy trial clock. So while you are correct in the abstract, we aren't close to the trigger point for that to occur.

Makes sense the defense wants to slow the trial down as much as possible, so I doubt they'd be pressing for a speedy trial. My comment was mostly pedantic as it isn't something that the prosecution can really utilize.

Jack Smith was pressing for a speedy trial arguing that it's the right of the people to see justice done equally as much as it's a right of the defendant. We see how well that's worked out.

But they can't do anything about it, right?

That, right there, calls the entire legal-profession & "justice" system into contempt of justice.

"Checks & Balances" are supposed to prevent ideological highjacking of the judiciary, right?

Obviously, it was all pretend, all "nudge nudge wink wink" "checks & balances".

The legal profession either will finish giving totalitarianism the leverage it needs to exterminate civil-rights,

XOR ( exclusive-OR ) it will get rewritten in ways that prevent such obscenity from wearing the legal-profession & calling itself "justice".

I'm not holding my breath for the Justice solution: incumbent lobby/interest groups wouldn't ever allow integrity to crimp their style, would they?