Chesebro and Powell hearing to determine severance
Politics@kbin.social – 1 points – youtube.com
Judge Scott McAfee presides over the hearing on Chesebro's and Powell's request to sever their trials from the rest of the GA RICO defendants (and from each other).
I'm only a half hour into this, but defense seems to be trying to make a case for "the indicted actions related to 'alternate electors' are separate from the indicted actions related to 'Coffee County voting machines,' are separate from 'pressuring a poll worker.'"
Defense is trying to suggest that the overarching criminal conspiracy to "attempt to overthrow a free and fair election" doesn't exist. But they are not, of course, going so far as to request that that RICO charge be dismissed, so I don't know how far their "argument that implies a need to dismiss the RICO charge" will go.
Edit:
On to about 40 minutes, in, prosecution is tearing up the defense. None of the cases defense cited were RICO cases.
Judge Scott brings up the concern of What if this state trial comes to a point where the jury is ready to hand over a verdict, and Judge Jones (the federal judge handling the removal hearings) hasn't ruled yet? To me, not a lawyer, since the guidelines for removal to federal court says that state proceedings continue as normal until and unless a federal judge rules that the case should be removed, the state case continues as normal - up to and including sentencing. Indeed, the clock is ticking, but I believe that Judge Jones would be the one who would need to make his ruling in an appropriately timely fashion.
Defense is still doubling down on "these are separate conspiracies," in an attempt to downplay the overarching conspiracy about overturning the election results in Georgia (which prosecution made note of).
Spoiler: Judge McAfee denies Chesebro's motion to sever from Powell. Denies Powell's motion to sever. Powell is going to trial on Oct 23 with Chesebro. What still needs to be decided is whether the remainder of the defendants are also going to trial on Oct 23. Based on Judge McAfee's reasoning for not severing Powell and Chesebro, and scheduling Powell to go to trial with Chesebro, the rest of those defendants may well see the inside of a courtroom on Oct 23.