From "Judge Quashes Six Charges in Georgia Election Case Against Trump/The ruling said charges that Donald Trump and allies solicited public officials to break the law were not specific enough; it left the rest of the case intact" (NYT)(free access link).
“These six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission,” Judge McAfee wrote in his ruling. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”...
Read the full text of the judge's order here.
Posts
52 comments:
So, how many charges are there? this entire case should be thrown out.
I wonder why he did it now. Still waiting on his ruling on prosecutorial misconduct.
Damn Good Judge.
Willis never plainly detailed the constitutional theory of why what the defendants were doing was a violation of constitutional principles. McAfee has said the state can come back for a second bite at the apple but they must give adequate, detailed explanations in order to protect the defendants' due process rights. This is a good thing.
Trump is guilty of PWO - Presidenting While Orange.
Boy, there are going to be a lot of democrat's dogs kicked today.
Is this a matter of tossing Trump a bone to cover his next week ruling to allow corrupt Fani to stay on the case with Wade?
"must give adequate, detailed explanations in order to protect the defendants' due process rights."
This should be interesting.
The judge basically said Trump's guilty a million ways from Sunday, but these few counts require extra explanations which can be refilled and prosecuted.
But treat it as a big win. You need it.
Howard said...The judge basically said Trump's guilty a million ways from Sunday,
The judge said no such thing. A judge would never say any such thing at this point in a trial. But you keep being you.
Boy, there are going to be a lot of democrat's dogs kicked today.
So now, NYT has it as "a judge in Atlanta"?
Ok, it is in the next paragraph, but editors, can you not save space by writing:
"In a surprise move on Wednesday, judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court in Atlanta quashed six of the charges..." And the writing of the "six of the charges" is confusing, because it later states, "Mr. Trump and his former personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had faced the most charges, at 13 apiece. They now each face 10 charges in the Georgia case." So it is three charges, but maybe perhaps across 2 defendants, thus 6 total? Nope, because later the article states: "The judge’s order reduced the number of charges against Mr. Trump, as well as co-defendants Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Ray Smith III, and Robert Cheeley." So, 6 defendants got reduced charges, but 2 got 3 reduced charges, but 6 charges were quashed. What were the charges? Well only one is mentioned: "For example, one count against Mr. Trump said that he “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to violate his oath of office by decertifying the election."
So now that the NYT ignored all the news that was fit to print; I want to find actual ruling by the Judge. That's not easy, because search engines now show all the bad news stories that copies the NYT format. Of course, the media provides lots of links in articles, but most don't provide link to the original document. "The Hill" comes through: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24478994-23sc188947-20240313-trump-order-on-defendants-special-demurrers90
Hey leftists - tell us about Cassidy Hutchinson's' fabrications. ...that you all swallowed whole with glee. Like a hamster killing mob.
Trump speaks in odd ways - somehow the left think it's illegal to speak.
It's been reported the call was illegally recorded but big Fani wanted to use it.
Howard… what happened to you? You seem to be a broken person, who or what broke you?
A "surprise" move.
Why is it a surprise? I suspect that is not explained. Surprise!
Rich comes by immediately to post the DNC spin
Wow, even Howard says that the judge has prejudged the case.
Is this a matter of tossing Trump a bone to cover his next week ruling to allow corrupt Fani to stay on the case with Wade?
My first thought too. The old, everyone will think that I'm fair because both sides are unhappy BS.
Is there a reason the judge didn't rule on these charges earlier?
Yeah, Rich. We can read. Thanks
Leland transcribed, one count against Mr. Trump said that he “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to violate his oath of office by decertifying the election."
Thank you, Leland. This case was going to be very difficult for big Fani to prove, seeing as how Trump did none of the things asserted: no unlawful solicitation, no request to violate an oath. Trump simply, in that call, said that he wanted Raffensperger to retabulate the votes counts in order to "find me 1100 votes" that Trump insisted were there, based on some data he had. "Find" not fabricate as Fani has dishonestly said many times. Trump did not ask for the creation of votes like Democrats do. He asked that the guy in charge find the legit votes that were out there being obscured by the midnight shenanigans.
We all knew Fani could not prove the charges she levied, but now it looks to me like the judge is cleaning up the case in preparation for another DA to handle it, if one is so inclined. I wouldn't be surprised to find this the first seams to part on the unraveling fabric of the whole case. It was always weak, poorly based, and full of bluster. She wanted people to plead guilty to avoid trial, and she got a few too.
But if you are interested in the truth read about Black Kryptonite in this article. Harrison Floyd (a snappy dresser by the way) is the awesome guy, one of Trump's codefendants, who really started pulling on the threads that are unraveling now.
Howard said...The judge basically said Trump's guilty a million ways from Sunday,
The judge said no such thing. A judge would never say any such thing at this point in a trial. But you keep being you.
I read the opinion, it does not say that Trump (or any of the others) are guilty. It says that the indictment contained many allegations of the acts that the defendants committed that allegedly solicited electors and elected officials to violate their oaths of office, but failed to identify which particular part of the oaths of office was pushed to have been violated. He noted that the oaths effectively are only that the electors/elected officials will uphold the U.S. and Georgia Constitutions, but those documents contain hundreds of provisions, and the defendants are not apprised of which particular provision(s) are the relevant ones. Absent such information, the defense cannot fairly prepare a defense.
With respect to the other charges, he said that they do not allege solicitation of some other crime and thus do not require this additional level of pleading.
For those who don't know, "quashed" means garnered up and thrown out.
“They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”
No fair. The prosecution was counting on this.
In a surprise move
Why are the people paid to inform the electorate so consistently "surprised"?
It's like they don't know what they're talking about.
"So now that the NYT ignored all the news that was fit to print; I want to find actual ruling by the Judge. That's not easy, because search engines now show all the bad news stories that copies the NYT format. Of course, the media provides lots of links in articles, but most don't provide link to the original document. "The Hill" comes through...."
My original post has the link to the document!
I agree the NYT should have the link, but I had the document link before the NYT had an article up (because I saw a Twitter post with the link). But I put up the link.
Thanks for the analysis of the numbers, Leland. They did write that in a confusing way. It wasn't easy to digest the 9-page opinion quickly and report concisely (or I'd have summarized it myself).
The judge is surely now going to refuse to toss Willis and Wade off the case- this was his attempt at ass-covering.
> Howard… what happened to you? You seem to be a broken person, who or what broke you?
Howard is one of my favorite posters here. He has this great "I'm above it all" pose. Half of his comments, especially the last few weeks, are pretty decent satire.
I don't know how anyone can say they don't like Howard's politics. All you see is his pose. And, IMO, it's funny.
I used to like Drago but he's too one note. It's a funny note, but mashing that same button over and over gets boring.
“Willis never plainly detailed the constitutional theory of why what the defendants were doing was a violation of constitutional principles. McAfee has said the state can come back for a second bite at the apple but they must give adequate, detailed explanations in order to protect the defendants' due process rights. This is a good thing.”
My bet right now is that this was an amateur mistake. The special prosecutor appears to have been hired for the size of his sexual organ, or at least his ability to wield it, instead of his ranking in law school. He likely did just fine with pleading enough particularity in garden variety felonies. But these were all inchoate “solicitation” charges to violate their targets’ oaths. The judge essentially said that the DA’s BF could charge Trump, etc, with Solicitation, but they had to specifically plead the underlying felony being solicited, as well as how the oaths to support the US/GA constitutions were to have been violated. The good news for Trump is that while he can be recharged with these crimes, with more particularity, GA apparently doesn't a mechanisms to amend the indictment, as is the case for federal cases. That means that Trump could be reindicted, but that would mean that the case might not get to trial before the election.
But think about what this says about the charges against Trump. These were all charges of soliciting various officials to violate their oaths of office. Among other things, they would require that the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew that his requests would violate their oaths, and that asking them to do so was a felony. I think that unlikely, outside NYC. These charges were in the indicting a ham sandwich territory, and essentially unprovable at trial.
“The judge is surely now going to refuse to toss Willis and Wade off the case- this was his attempt at ass-covering.”
Good point. But that may be for the better. Wade is apparently over his head here, and that means that he will likely be out lawyered. RICO cases are hard to prosecute, and with an amateur in the driver’s seat, it likely means ultimate acquittal.
Remaining counts against Trump.
As far as I can tell, the remaining charges against Trump are as follows:
Count 1. Racketeering. I think this is a catchall saying that various people co-ordinated in carrying out counts 2-41
Counts 9,11,13,15,17,19. I think these all involve Trump and others preparing various documents that would be used to register an alternate slate of electors if the Georgia commissioner agreed to appoint them. The charge is that these are fraudulent documents since they list electors who were not the actual electors. As far as I know, these were simply prepared in order to have them ready if the alternates were approved, but the sate is claiming that the preparation of these "false documents" is a crime.
Count 27 Filing false statements. Trump and others filed a statement listing 6 claims that they had reason to know to be untrue. 5 are of the form "X ballots should not have been counted since they fall under category Y". The 6th is that some election workers were given false information when told to go home.
Counts 29, 39. Making false verbal statements. It looks like these come from that phonecall to Raffensperger. Many of them strike me as examples of Trump's hyperbole, eg that Ruby Freeman stuffed the ballot boxes. These were not officially filed, but the state claims that just saying them to an officer (Raffensperger) constitutes a crime.
I could be wrong in my understanding of these.
Howard's comments have soured over the last year, and my theory is that he is embarrassed at being put in the position of having to defend the Biden Administration. So he ups the vitriol as the only resort. To his toughness credit, he is still here fighting the fight- note how many of Biden's supporters have vanished from this forum in the last year.
Surprise to who?
What's all this Fani Willis crap? It's Gorilla Grip Pussy Pal. Be respectful.
Over broad charges that cannot be properly defended against, in a highest-profile case against a former President, put in place by a D.A. who is paying hefty consulting fees to an external attorney with no specialty in these areas...
Seems like this is how you'd comport a rock solid case, no?
Please, cremes. Howard doesn't need any encouragement.
Lily — Did you read the opinion? It’s short and easy to follow.
I guess I missed the link in the original post. Thank you. The charges were dropped because they were too vague, and reading them, it seems their removal is vague as well, but for those interested, click the link and find the charges in bullet form on pages 3 and 4 of the ruling.
I could wonder about the timing, but I do see this issue as separate from the removal of Fani Willis. If another DA wanted to step in, then they would either need to go back to a grand jury or not pursue those charges. It would also be weird to remove Willis and Wade, then drop the 6 charges. What I think the ruling does is show Judge McAfee's unwillingness to dismiss all charges based on prosecutorial misconduct.
I have to wonder if this might be an indication that McAfee will not disqualify Willis, he’s refusing to throw out key elements of the RICO case. If he were gonna disqualify Willis, he likely would not have bothered to wrap up this very detailed order.
It's just nice to see that you care, Yancy. 🤗
Rich;
Willis never plainly detailed the constitutional theory of why what the defendants were doing was a violation of constitutional.
Trump and others were charged with under conspiracy legal statutes. Willis never identified what law the imagined conspiracy violated. In short the Judge pointed out that the defendants have no idea what they did wrong. Therefore its impossible to mount a defense. Like the Trump fraud case that has yet to identify who was defrauded.
While "ignorance of the law is no excuse" (Unless you are a well-connected Democrat politician), charging people with "crimes" which are not specified in either the relevant statutes or the common law is a fundamental violation of due process.
When prosecutors are permitted to charge based on "creative" interpretations of vague and overbroad criminal statutes (such as RICO) which even lawyers are hard-pressed to understand or explain, the Constitution is violated.
Better to let 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted (or something). Dismiss the case, and tell the prosecution to come back with something actually based on the clearly enunciated law, or don't come back at all.
You may think Trump is guilty of "something," but you have to be wilfully blind to regard this circus as anything approaching "justice." Or as a "good thing" for anything but naked political partisanship.
And there are 13 other defendants having their lives ruined by this travesty.
It's hard to follow, but I hope they haven't thrown out the count about Trump asking the government official (the Governor?) to "find" some more votes. That's always been my favorite. If that's a crime, then can they indict Gore in Florida? He wanted a recount to "find" more votes, remember?
" In short the Judge pointed out that the defendants have no idea what they did wrong."
Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and absent the cheating, Joe Biden in 2020. That's what he did wrong, and that's why he's being harassed. Everybody knows this.
“Good point. But that may be for the better. Wade is apparently over his head here, and that means that he will likely be out lawyered. RICO cases are hard to prosecute, and with an amateur in the driver’s seat, it likely means ultimate acquittal.”
HA Fing HA, this is a Fulton County GA jury! Unless the judge is going to adjudicate the recusal without self interest.
Same applies to the NY "fraud" case--no one in business could know what would violate that law.
Wade had never tried even one felony case before this Bruce Hayden.
Let's see how this new revelation effects all the other charges. The defendants now have a prybar in the door.
Something neither readers here or the Times may know: there is a cabal of very untrustworthy leftitarians high up in our state GOP. Some voted for Obama, one even his delegate: some are defense attorneys. None of them are on trial. Instead, they coerced several of the lesser figures on trial to possibly violate election norms. A few of the people being charged are naive. I think they're victims of this cabal, which is clearly really Democrats infiltrating the populist wing of the RNC.
All in all, the dismissals are a pretty small hill of beans. Serious charges remain -- absurd or selectively enforced, but serious.
Forget insulting Fani Willis' appearance, intelligence, and sex life. We should be focusing on being as disciplined as the Democrats about serious things, like purging the Party ranks of dishonest leftitarians and their fellow travellers in the Never Trump wing. They target sincere but relatively uninformed Trump activists and manipulate them, with the help of Steve Bannon and Jenny Beth Martin. I've been doing this for decades; I have been fooled sometimes, but I learn from it. I know what I'm talking about.
Had we done this earlier, we'd still have the Senate stitched up.
Post a Comment