Judge Juan Merchan has found former President Donald Trump in contempt for violating the gag order in his hush money trial for the 10th time and said he’ll consider jail time going forward.
I agree this is two-tired bullshit, but it’s exactly what needs to happen. At the first arraignment, Merchan fined the state maximum. At the second, he fined the state maximum and threatened jail time for a future infraction, after declaring his disinterest in jailing a former President. This is how a smart judge protects his rulings from mistrial appeal, which is exactly what the defense would do under even a hint of bias. Merchan wants everything to stick, just as we all do.
Nice. I got contempt of court once and spent the weekend in jail. No ifs ands or buts about it. Judge wouldn't even let me hand my house keys to my partner. Lol
The judge doesn’t want to give Trump’s team any ammunition for an appeal. I realize it’s absurd, but if he’s thrown in jail without significant warning then they’ll argue it biased the already liberal jury (cause NYC) against him too much.
(I am not a lawyer, that’s just my understanding.)
The judge doesn’t want to give Trump’s team any ammunition for an appeal.
If you believe this shit, you're fooling yourself. Guy's gotten ten warnings when any off-the-street plaintiff would be lucky to get one. Not only will there be ammo for appeal, Merchan is building precedent of untouchability. My man is straight up announcing
The last thing I want to do is put you in jail.
I-fucking-magine this getting said during any other trial. How much more biased can a judge get?
Look, buddy... Your reasonabilitiness is getting in the way of my pissedoffedness. Meet me back here in two weeks so one of us can say "See? I told you so!"
I wonder if he means that in the sense of "putting you in jail is only going to empower your frankly rabid base of supporters. I need to avoid even the slightest hint of a mistrial so we can put you in prison for good."
He knows that the rabid Republicans will try to twist it to say that he was jailed to prevent him from attending his own hearing. When they would gladly teleconference him in from the cell, like they do with other criminals. But that's not good enough for Donald Duck. Either this Jack-o'-lantern gets to sit there and look pretty or he will scream and cry a fit until election day comes around and it's too late.
The judge said everyone gets warnings and fines before jail time. If he could, he'd issue a large fine, but he can't because state law caps the fine at $1,000 per violation. The judge acknowledged that a $10,000 fine for a multi-millionaire isn't even a punishment, but immediately jailing someone because they can easily afford the fine seemed wrong. Trump violated the gag order 10 times before being officially told to stop, so the judge is lumping them all into a "first" violation. He said the "second" violation absolutely will be punished with jail time. We'll see.
...but immediately jailing someone because they can easily afford the fine seemed wrong.
No it doesn't, not even a little bit! Restrictions on their time are the only things rich people understand; they should be jailed instead of fined early and often.
This is the second time in this criminal trial (all previous ones have been civil trials), and this me the judge stated that fines are clearly not working and that jail time could be necessary if it keeps happening.
Yes I knew we'll all believe it when it happens, but it is different now that he's in criminal court and the maximum fine has been dealt both for the first and second infringement.
It's not a sentence. This is a penalty imposed by a judge for misbehaviour in a court room, not a sentence handed down for a crime.
And the judge has to give at least a couple of warnings (this is actually the 2nd, not the 10th; the first 9 violations were all assessed as a block) or else he risks the actual case getting thrown out on appeal.
Sentencing him to jail is going to activate his base. That’s my only concern. People who have grown tired of him crying wolf will finally see this as the deep state locking away Trump to keep him from campaigning.
Correct me but any pregraduate law student who hasn't been skipping on their classes could get rich by filing for the obvious bias the judges have to allow 10 contempts of court, wouldn't they?
So, if I am understanding correctly, as a citizen I can threaten a judge 9 times, or threaten 9 different judges, and demand that I can only be held accountable for only one of them, or for all of them as a package only once?
Don't be fooled by the "10th time". There were 9 separate violations that were all brought as a single complaint last week. So technically one "time" (as in, one ruling), just regarding 9 separate tweets so technically nine separate incidents. Number ten here is basically Donnie's second strike in terms of actual warnings. If he gets a third without repercussions, then I think it'll be fair to say the judge may be bluffing.
Remember, judges have to play things a little softly if they don't want to set up precedent for appeal. He can't give Trump any reason to claim he's being treated unfairly. Two warnings is perfectly reasonable.
It's actually pretty likely to just be an afternoon, the first time around. Remember, this is a penalty for behaviour in court, not for the actual crimes he's done. The point is to get him to stop acting like a little child. So yeah, odds are the judge books him for an afternoon, just so he can see how bad it is, then if he still keeps at it he starts getting week long stretches until he learns to stop attacking witnesses.
Everyone complaining about the judges leniency... consider that getting locked up would be absolute gold for trumps campaign. Infinite money as well as great exposure.
Yeas it works be great to see him behind bars, but I'd prefer to play the long game.
Even if he was locked up for a lengthy period of time, he can campaign from jail. There is precedent for this. He has to be locked up under specific circumstances to stop his campaign.
Name one famous example of a charismatic coup-attempting fascist getting locked up and rallying their supporters behind a manifesto referring to “their struggle”.
That is irrelevant. If Trump's behavior would cause a regular schlub to be jailed, then he should be jailed, full stop. That's how the law is supposed to work.
A judges whole job is to interpret the law and to apply appropriate penalties given the circumstances.
In some cases crimes have prescribed penalties - "exceeding the speed limit by 5mph" probably has a prescribed penalty.
In other cases the judge must weight the circumstances and determine what penalty is appropriate.
In this case, trump is antagonising the judge because it keeps his base engaged, and keeps campaign donations flowing in. Trump wants to go to jail because it would ignite his base. Why would a judge feel that penalty is appropriate? May as well give him a blow job.
More to the point, the primary objective of any punishment in this case would be to cause Trump to desist. If putting him in jail is not going to do that, but rather give his contemptuous remarks a far greater reach, then why indeed put him in jail?
Honestly, the best course of action for the judge and the correct "punishment" for Trump is to give his various utterances the least oxygen possible while preserving the authority of the court.
Doesn't this create a precedence for being a dick to judges because they let it slide for Drowsy Don and everyone is supposed to be treated equally in front of court? I wonder what would happen if I were to be found in contempt of court for the 10th time in my trial.
He's not been warned ten times. It's ten violations. The first nine happened as a block. So this is his second strike, in terms of how often he's been reprimanded for this.
Image sharing on lemmy is a shitshow. I don’t know what to say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: you’re on iOS, so I recommend that you have at least Voyager and Mlem. Each have their pros and cons. Mlem used to me my go-to, but now it’s Voyager until Mlem can catch up with some much-needed feature updates.
Putting him in jail is what he wants. He'll use that to make his political martyr stance. It will escalate tension in his ranks and possibly result in violence. He can use all of it in his favor bc his people believe anything.
If he wants to have a conflict with the government to try to get the faithful riled up, he can induce it one way or another. It could be violating a court order or just directly breaking some law.
If that's what he's aiming for, I'm not sold that this is is a clever tactic that would play in his favor. I'm sure that there are people who it'll get worked up. But the flip side is that winning a general election entails convincing the center. And I am not at all sure that what people want, across-the-board, is more circus. I think that the people for whom it'd be compelling are weighted towards the people who are already gonna vote and vote for him. I think that the people for whom it'd be a turn-off are likely weighted towards the people who are at risk of not voting for him.
I never said it was a smart play but he will use it, just like the mugshot. That didn't hurt him but instead fueled a boost in the polls. Polls don't mean shit but he got a boost. We have a weak sitting president and Trump uses outrage as a fuel. He will capitalize on it. Instead, fine him a large amount and show he's a broke bitch. That will do a lot more.
If you put him in jail for a weekend, he'll be treated like a martyr and will be treated like a king by the cops and guards, who are surely his own supporters.
Yes, if he breaks... His supporters have literally taken the stance of "wearing diapers and shitting your pants is manly."
If he breaks, it's because that's what a man does. Hell, if video came out of him going down on some dude, you'd see all his homophobic followers wear "I suck dick for Trump" shirts, loud and proud, and with no hint of irony.
Nothing matters to them anymore except Trump, so nothing Tru.o does can dissuade them... They'll just change whatever they like/hate to stay on the team.
Even if they put him in jail, it'd be like when Capone went. He'll get his own cell by himself with a TV to watch fox news on, they'll give him a phone to tweet his bullshit, probably a personal chef to make him Big Macs and Diet Cokes.
This isn't the case that's gonna fix the justice system, even if we did throw him in jail.