Tag Archives: witnesses

A Report From Someone Who Was There

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On Tuesday, The New York Post posted an article by Alan Dershowitz about the actions of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan during the trial of President Trump.

The article reports:

Many experienced lawyers raised their eyebrows when the judge excluded obviously relevant evidence when offered by the defense, while including irrelevant evidence offered by the prosecution.

But when the defense’s only substantive witness, the experienced attorney Robert Costello, raised his eyebrows at one of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s rulings, the court went berserk.

Losing his cool and showing his thin skin, the judge cleared the courtroom of everyone including the media.

For some reason, I was allowed to stay, and I observed one of the most remarkable wrong-headed biases I have ever seen. The judge actually threatened to strike all of Costello’s testimony if he raised his eyebrows again.

That of course would have been unconstitutional because it would have denied the defendant his Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses and to raise a defense.

…Even if what Costello did was wrong, and it was not, it would be utterly improper and unlawful to strike his testimony — testimony that undercut and contradicted the government’s star witness.

The judge’s threat was absolutely outrageous, unethical, unlawful and petty.

Moreover, his affect while issuing that unconstitutional threat revealed his utter contempt for the defense and anyone who testified for the defendant.

The public should have been able to see the judge in action, but because the case is not being televised, the public has to rely on the biased reporting of partisan journalists.

Attorney Dershowitz shared a story in the article about seeing a former student at the trial and chatting with him. Unfortunately the media did not even report that accurately.

The article notes:

But NBC, the Daily Beast and other media decided to make up a story about the event. They claimed that I had a spat with my nemesis, rather than a friendly conversation with a former student.

Their account was made up, yet it was circulated through the media.

To his credit, Eisen (the former student) wrote to the media to correct the account, saying that the person sitting next to him would confirm the media’s false reporting. I doubt we will see a retraction.

This minor incident is simply the tip of a very large and deep iceberg of false reporting about the trial that can only occur because the proceedings are not being televised.

There are television cameras in the courtroom, and they record and transmit every word, but not to the public; only select reporters in the overflow room see what the cameras transmit.

There is absolutely no good reason why a trial of this importance, or any trial, should not be televised live and in real time.

Allowing the public to see their courts in action is the best guarantee of fairness.

This trial is not supposed to be fair. It’s purpose is to convince American voters that President Trump is a felon and that no one should vote for him. The gymnastics they had to to through to bring the case to trial (overlooking the statute of limitations, elevating a misdemeanor to a felony, bringing in a witness that had already been convicted of perjury, etc.) should be an indication that this whole exercise has no substance.

Why Even Bother With The Oath?

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On Monday, Jonathan Turley posted an article about the ongoing trial of President Trump that is taking place in New York. No one with any knowledge of the law can take this trial seriously.

The headline reads:

A Disbarred, Serial Perjurer Walks into a Court and Asks to Take an Oath…Seriously, No Joke

The article reports:

A disbarred, serial perjurer walks into a courtroom and asks to take an oath . . . No, seriously, this is not a joke. Michael Cohen will soon appear in a Manhattan courtroom in what is sure to be one of the most bizarre moments in legal history.

Cohen nearly comprises the prosecution’s entire case against former President Donald Trump under a criminal theory that still has many of us baffled. It is not clear what crime Trump was supposedly trying to conceal by making “hush-money” payments to former porn actress Stormy Daniels.

What is clear is that none of the witnesses called in recent weeks has had any direct involvement with Trump on the payments.

The witnesses had a lot to say about Cohen, and most of it was not good. They described an unprofessional, self-proclaimed “fix-it man” who created a shell corporation to buy out Daniels with his own money. The money was later paid back by Trump after the election, with other legal expenses.

So Cohen will now make the pitch to the jury that they should put his former client in jail for following his own legal advice.

This would be difficult even for a competent and ethical lawyer. For Cohen, it is utter insanity. But Bragg is betting on a New York jury looking no further than the identity of the defendant to convict.

Cohen has an impressive history of lies and exaggerations that may be unparalleled. Just weeks ago, another judge denounced him as a serial perjurer who was still gaming the system.

This is not the defendant, mind you, but Alvin Bragg’s star witness.

The article concludes:

Under New York law, the oath administered by the court is supposed “to awaken the conscience and impress the mind of the witness in accordance with that witness’s religious or ethical beliefs.”

Before the bailiff administers the oath to Cohen, Judge Juan Merchan may have to warn spectators in the courtroom not to laugh. For anyone familiar with Cohen, it will sound like the ultimate punchline to a bad joke.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is a lawsuit created and tried by the equivalent of the three stooges.

Injustice in Our Justice System

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D   

There is an old saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We are seeing glaring examples of this in our justice (maybe better our injustice system).    As any sensible person can see, President Trump is being singled out by the Democrat’s for persecution not prosecution. Their fear of him is palpable and they will do anything to stop him from running again. We must make sure they fail, or our constitutional republic will never recover. 

Some judges have become political pawns rather than fair arbiters of facts and truth.  The case in New York is a prime example. The judge issued a summary judgement  against President Trump before even hearing his defense. The judge is a lifelong Democrat as is the prosecutor Latisha James.  As in the other three cases against President Trump, this judge placed a “gag” order on President Trump that violates his first amendment right to free speech. The case in Atlanta about election interference also includes a gag order. There is no legal justification for preventing a defendant from commenting critically about the trial process or the motivation of the judge or prosecutor. The only legal justification for a gag order by a judge is based on 18USC1512 which is concerned with violence, threats and intimidation of witnesses. It says nothing about criticizing the judge, clerk or prosecutor. In today’s judicial system the outcome of a case often has more to do with the judge who tries the case than the facts presented. This is not blind justice. It is right out of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China. 

Another troubling development, as shown by the fraudulent cases against the former president, is the prosecution or threat of prosecution of his attorneys and staff.  Prosecutors in the Atlanta case are using what is called RICO tactics that were designed to be used against organized crime. What they do is threaten the defendant’s attorney with felony prosecution if he or she does not reveal supposedly privileged conversation with their clients. The enormous cost of defending oneself is often sufficient to bankrupt the attorney. This actually amounts to blackmail. Who can trust the truthfulness of a person who is threatened with jail time, professional ruin and financial destruction if they do not go along with the prosecutors and turn states evidence against their client who came to them, expecting  attorney/client privacy? This is not the justice that our Founding Fathers expected would occur in our country. 

So what do we do about this trend?  First, as stated above we must support the re-election of President Trump to show the leftist Democrats that these tactics will not work in this country. Second, we must get our state legislators to pass legislation that makes the communication between attorney and client  absolutely privileged and cannot be used by any prosecutor in a trial or lawsuit. It should be similar to the spousal rule that a wife cannot be forced or coerced into testifying against her husband and vice versa. In fact, an attorney should not be allowed to testify willingly against a client based on privileged communications. Third, there should be an independent  process that can review the actions of a judge to ensure that political motivations are not influencing the judge’s actions and decisions.   

Without these or similar actions to protect the integrity of the justice system, the citizen’s confidence that we can receive justice before the law will continue to be undermined. 

This Is A Problem

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about some of the sworn statements submitted by people who were observing the Georgia ballot counting.

The article reports:

Several witnesses to parts of the presidential recount in Georgia have signed sworn statements testifying that they observed ballots cast for President Trump counted instead for Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Lin Wood, an attorney for the Trump campaign, filed affidavits with a federal court in Georgia earlier this week as part of an emergency motion to stop the certification of the election results in Georgia. The recount officially ended at the end of the day on Wednesday.

Nine individuals sites in the affidavits swore to have seen suspicious mail-in ballots, almost uniformly cast for Biden. The ballots were in pristine condition and had no creases on them, according to the affidavits, which seems to appear unusual considering mail-in ballots must be folded to fit into the envelope in which they are mailed.

The article includes statements by two observers:

Nicholas Zeher, a recount observer in Henry County, testified that “based on my observations, I believe that additional absentee ballots were cast for Donald Trump but counted for Joe Biden. I further believe that there was widespread fraud favoring Joe Biden.” 

Consetta Johnson, who monitored the recount effort in Cobb County, said she witnessed similar activities taking place at her recount site, in addition to watching poll workers “putting the already separated paper receipt ballots in the ‘No Vote’ and ‘Jorgensen’ tray, and removing them and putting them inside the Biden tray.”

Tally errors in several other Georgia counties that came out to falsely favor Joe Biden over President Trump by thousands of votes have been discovered because of the recount in Georgia. 

I have no idea if there was enough fraud to swing the election, but it seems as if we need to investigate all of the charges of illegal activity surrounding this election.