Follow the latest developments in former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial in New York.
Trump's defense team has moved for a mistrial over Stormy Daniels' testimony
"We move for a mistrial based on the testimony this morning," defense attorney Todd Blanche said following the lunch break.
"The guardrails by this witness answering questions by the government were just thrown to the side," Blanche said.
"There is no remedy that we can fashion ... to unring this bell," Blanche said about the impact of Daniels' testimony.
Blanche argued the prosecutors wanted to embarrass Trump and inflame the jury and was far afield from a case about falsification of business records.
"She talked about a consensual encounter with President Trump that she was trying to sell," Blanche said. "We heard a completely different story."
Blanche argued that the testimony regarding condoms, being "blacked out" and and the "power dynamic" prejudiced the jury.
"This has nothing to do with the reason why we're here," Blanche said. "How can you un-ring a bell?"
The prosecution pushed back.
"Her account completes the narrative that precipitated the falsification of business records," Hoffinger said. "It is precisely what the defendant did not want to become public."
"I was surprised that there were not more objections," from the defense team he added. "At one point, the court ... objected, because there was no objection coming from the defense."
Either they are bad lawyers or they were strategically withholding their objections in order to file the mistrial motion. I fully expect this to be brought up again in an appeal, assuming Trump loses the case.
I've been following this trial very closely. Trump is the problem. He demands that his lawyers challenge everything very aggressively. He is enraged if his counsel accepts even trivial facts that make no difference either way. The bigger question is why they put up with his tantrums.
"But Merchan says he was also surprised there were not more objections from the defense and that, at one point, he stepped in of his own accord to restrict Daniels’ testimony."
Blanche was actually a pretty respected prosecutor turned defense attorney, its surprising he took the case unless he wanted to get out of law and this was his swansong before transitioning to some sweet talkinghead gig or other well-paid right-wing political operative role
IANAL but if you don't object you still can't ask for a mistrial unless you argue that the defense given by the lawyers was literally incompetent, and I'm far from an expert but i think that's a pretty hard bar to reach. Especially if pre-trial they would put that lawyer on the stand and ask why they didn't object during the testimony but only complained after the testimony, and i can't imagine any valid argument that would be accepted by a court.
Bottom line, I'm not an expert at all, but if they purposely didn't object so that they could ask for a mistrial, I'm pretty sure that won't work at all
Yes. Mistrial is only even something irreversible happens and the trial became unfair. If you didn't call bullshit at the time, you are not allowed to complain about everything later. And because you didn't object, there's also no preserved issue for appeal.
Btw I think the judge would be able to base their opinion in latches. But I might be wrong.
Interesting. Harvey Weinstein's conviction in New York was thrown out over something like that. He is likely to be retried there though, and his California conviction still stands.
In Weinstein's case the prosecution brought in testimony from women who weren't part of the charges that were actually being tried, though, which is a pretty big difference from what happened here. Clifford is kind of central to this case.