After jury deliberations began in the battery and defamation charges brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, Trump brazenly lied yet again, saying via his social media:
Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me. In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome! (My bolding-MS]
This is a flat-out lie. No one was stopping him from testifying. As I posted earlier today, Trump’s strategy all along was to avoid testifying to avoid being cross-examined, wait until it was too late to testify in person by getting on the witness list, say at the last minute that he wanted to testify while expecting to be denied, and then claim that he was not allowed because the judge was biased against him and use that as a basis for appeal.
The judge checkmated him by giving him a window of time to apply to testify, which he did not use. But he now goes ahead anyway and says that he was denied the chance to speak.
This ploy might work with his devoted supporters but an appeals court will summarily reject that argument should he be found guilty.
The possible verdicts that the jury can return, as told to them by the judge:
The jury can return one of several verdicts.
It can find that Trump raped Carroll, who was in the front row of the court on Tuesday. Alternatively, if it does not believe the evidence proves rape, it can find he is responsible for sexual abuse, meaning forcible sexual contact without consent.
If the jurors do not believe either of those findings are applicable, then they can return a verdict of forcible touching, or they can clear Trump. If they find Trump is responsible for sexual abuse in any form, the jurors will also have to assess damages.
It appears that I was mistaken when I said earlier that a civil case requires just a 5/6th majority which in a jury of nine people would require eight to bring in a verdict of guilty. That seems to apply only in New York state courts. It seems that because this is in a federal court, the verdict must be unanimous, which improves Trump’s chances.
Guilty! The jury didn’t even need one day to find him guilty of rape, battery, and defamation.
5 million awarded to Ms Carroll.
They didn’t find him guilty of rape, which is to say, the jury found that rape had not been proven by the case. But it did accept the case for sexual abuse, battery, and defamation.
I’m pleased with the outcome, the speed at which the jury decided the verdict, and the substantial award. It’s true that rape isn’t technically the charge, but the voting public will certainly note that rape occurred despite the parsing of lawyers and phrasing around degrees of sexual assault.
I don’t quite understand all the legal complexities of a civil case that involves defamation stemming from sexual battery. The jury can’t find him criminally guilty of rape, but they clearly believe Ms. Carroll, and she calls it rape.
I hope convicting Trump will be the top trend of 2023. Can’t wait for the episodes that involve Stormy Daniels in NYC and election extortion in Georgia.
Sure, that’s the message any reasonable person would take from a verdict that conclusively, clearly and rapidly showed that rape had not been proven even by the low standards of a civil trial, let alone a criminal one. The voting public are notoriously perspicacious in these things and are noted for inferring things not in evidence.
You should get that printed on a t shirt.
#4 sonof
Yeah, we all well know the public is going to be completely proportionate in their response to this and not a single person will mistake this for a conviction of rape.
Oops.
… and then a (I assume sarcastic? It’s hard to tell) link to a page where the word “rape”, “rapist”, “raped” appear let me see how many times… oh, that’s it, none at all.
Did you have a point?
Yes, somewhere above your head apparently.