Special counsel sharply rebukes Cannon's jury instruction order in Trump case

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

THE TRUMP CASES
Special counsel sharply rebukes Cannon's jury instruction order in Trump case

Both Trump's team and prosecutors responded to an order asking them to write hypothetical jury instructions involving the Presidential Records Act

By Perry Stein
April 3, 2024 at 3:32 a.m. EDT

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Aileen M. Cannon is seen in July 2020 during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing following her nomination to serve as U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (U.S. Senate/AP)

Prosecutors and attorneys for Donald Trump submitted their hypothetical jury instructions in the classified-document case late Tuesday, revealing sharp disagreements over how the two sides interpret the basic legal issues at the heart of the case against the former president.

The filings come in response to an unusual request by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida. The judge last month ordered the defense lawyers and the prosecutors to file submissions outlining hypothetical jury instructions based on competing interpretations of two laws related to the case.

Special counsel Jack Smith pushed back hard against the judge, saying that the jury instructions were based on a "fundamentally flawed legal premise" and warned that he may appeal if the judge rules against him.

Legal experts say Cannon's focus on jury instructions seems odd because a trial is not imminent and the judge still has a number of decisions to make in the pretrial proceedings before the instructions are relevant. They also say the premise of Cannon's orders indulged some mangled interpretations of laws that have been pushed by Trump's lawyers and supporters.

{snip}

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By Perry Stein
Perry Stein covers the Justice Department and FBI for The Washington Post. She previously covered D.C. education. Before she joined The Post in 2015, she was a staff writer for Washington City Paper and wrote for the Miami Herald. Twitter https://twitter.com/perrystein

{for the update noonish Wednesday}

By Devlin Barrett
Devlin Barrett writes about the FBI and the Justice Department, and is the author of "October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election." He was part of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 and 2022. In 2017 he was a co-finalist for the Pulitzer for Feature Writing and the Pulitzer for International Reporting. Twitter https://twitter.com/DevlinBarrett

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/03/trump-documents-case-cannon-jack-smith/

[Hekate]

1. While it is true she is inexperienced & incompetent, she is also corrupt & owes Trump

[rampartc]

2. but it is not the hudges job to brief prededents and such.

that would be smith's job too counter the wild claims of trumps eventually to be disbarred dream team.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Prosecutors Blast Judge's Order In Trump's Docs Case

Prosecutors Blast Judge’s Order In Trump’s Docs Case
April 3, 2024 Trump Corruption, Trump Lies

The New York Times reports:

In an open display of frustration, federal prosecutors on Tuesday night told the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case that a “fundamentally flawed” order she had issued was causing delays and asked her to quickly resolve a critical dispute about one of Mr. Trump’s defenses — leaving them time to appeal if needed.

The unusual and risky move by the prosecutors, contained in a 24-page filing, signaled their mounting impatience with the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, who has allowed the case to become bogged down in a logjam of unresolved issues and curious procedural requests.

In their filing, prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, all but begged Judge Cannon to move the case along and make a binding decision about one of Mr. Trump’s most brazen claims: that he cannot be prosecuted for having taken home a trove of national security documents after leaving office because he transformed them into his own personal property under a law known as the Presidential Records Act.

Read the full article.

{snip}

[oasis]

4. Judge A.Cannon will be set

for life.
She doesn't give a damn what folks think of her.