OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Legal expert and constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said following former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his hush money trial, there are grounds for an easy reversal on “procedural and constitutional” grounds.
The jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts. However, for weeks, legal experts, including Turley, have noted that the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was based on manufactured charges while presiding Judge Juan Merchan was severely — and perhaps unconstitutionally — hampering Trump’s defense.
Turley argued that this could give Trump a great opportunity on appeal.
Speaking with Fox’s Larry Kudlow, Turley said: “Very few of us outside of Manhattan have a lot of faith in the legal system right now and the former president may have rough sledding on the first level of appeal and after that, some of the glaring errors will go in front of the Supreme Court and in my view, it’s, it would be impossible to sustain this verdict and there’s so many problems, so many errors that were committed by judge merchan but we may have to wait a bit.”
Kudlow asked: “Last one, Jonathan, and you’re always so great. You wrote a good piece. I read it in The Hill. There are a number of reasons to believe that the Trump appeal in the Alvin Bragg case will be successful. You still think that?”
“I do. Look, very few of us outside Manhattan have a lot of faith in the New York legal system right now. And the former president may have some rough sledding on the first level of appeal, but after that, I think that some of these glaring errors will become more pronounced for judges,” Turley said.
Turley added: “I think eventually it will go in front of the Supreme Court. In my view, it’s — it would be impossible to sustain this verdict. I mean, this — there are so many problems, so many errors that were committed by Judge Merchan. But we may have to wait a bit. It’s likely to occur after the election, which is what many people in Manhattan were hoping for.”
“I think the level of reversible error here really is quite considerable. It runs the waterfront of procedural to constitutional problems, including federal constitutional violations,” Turley declared. “I don’t even see how you can meet the unanimity requirement in the way that this thing was instructed.
“Yeah, they were unanimous that some crime was committed on the secondary crime, but it’s apparently between the jurors and God as to what that crime was unless there is going to be some release of a jury form. We have not seen that jury form,” he continued, referencing a document that could explain on what basis jurors found Trump guilty.
“I think that, in the end, we were going to have a reversal. I’m fairly confident of that. Now, in the New York appellate system, they have a rule for Trump. They are very good lawyers in the New York system and credible people who want the system to work the way it is designed,” Turley continued. “I am eternally an optimist. I was an optimist about a hung jury. And I’m an optimist now about the appellate judges.
“I think at some point, people will step forward and say enough. You know, hating this man is not enough to forget the lack of the evidence. And once again, I do not blame this jury. They were given instructions that made it very easy to convict. And some of them might not have seen a real option not to, given how low these standards seem,” he added.
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