Yes. Anyway, I’m sure whatever the jury decides Manafort can always prevail upon SCOTUS to ferret out some procedural or instruction error to justify vacating the verdicts.
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Here’s to Miss Frank.
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I disagree.
Firstly, the motions Manafort’s team have offered up never had a chance with ANY judge IMO.
Secondly, this is what Judge Ellis had to say in May:
“I don’t see what relation this indictment has with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” Ellis told prosecutors. "You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud … What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment."
Ellis later quipped: “The vernacular is ‘to sing.’”
But, he DID reject Manafort’s motion to dismiss charges.
Perhaps it was just theater in order to prove he wasn’t a part of the deep state?
I don’t know.
But publishing the witness list, gives Trump’s people time to try to intimidate them.
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I think Ellis’ moves push Manafort towards a deal if Manafort is inclined. It does make it more real for him. The types of witnesses, accountants, don’t leave a lot of room for cross-examiners to make inroads. If his daughters have any leverage with Manafort, they’ll understand this and beg him to take a deal. I’ve read the texts from one of the Manafort daughters. They suffer from a bad case of white privilege but they aren’t stupid.
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The Oregon prosecutors overreached by creating an all or nothing conviction situation. The jury wanted to convict on the lesser charges but were told they couldn’t decouple the conspiracy conviction.
However, only 5 of the ~27 Malheur invaders skated, with the Bundys staying in custody on other charges.
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I think that’s why Ellis has been doing the stuff he has been doing. He’s making sure Manafort has no excuses.
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Yes. Thanks for that reminder. I also think that’s what happened in the OJ trial. All of the facts in the OJ case pointed to a compulsive act. Had he been charged for 2nd degree murder or manslaughter he would’ve been convicted imho. First degree murder was a bridge too far and that put more burden on the prosecution to show that everything was above board and Cochran effectively argued that you couldn’t trust racist cops to treat OJ any differently than they had been doing to South Central LA residents for years.
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And to all the Miss Franks of the world!
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The Manafort’s are a longstanding crime family (part of the mob) in Conn. with New Britain as their home base.
This judge better be ready to take responsibility with blood on his hands if any of those 5 witnesses gets bumped off which is not our of the question with the mob that Manafort’s are part of. Conn. has had a lot of gayland slayings over the years with suspicions but unable to tie back to the Manafort’s.
A “tiny” piece of good news he had for the jurors who were selected was that they would be supplied free lunch every day.
“Don’t look for the Baked Alaska on the menu,” he said, while assuring them that the food would be “palatable.”
At press time, a legion of graduate students was seen to descend immediately upon the US District Court.
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Some more details about pre-trial wrangling in the Manafort case:
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There are usually 12 jurors and 6 alternates in average trials.
Virginia may have other rules or requirements.
The 70 jurors represent the pool from which the jury will be chosen, unless I’ve misread the whole thing.
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Actually, that doesn’t sound like nearly enough. I’ve been in jury pools of 100 for liability cases in San Mateo County.
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I think Ellis called for 12 jurors and 4 alternates.
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Downing has also asked that photographs of Yanukovych be kept out of evidence.
“This evidence has minimal probative value. In contrast, evidence
related to the substance of Mr. Manafort’s overseas consulting work
presents substantial risk of unfair prejudice, jury confusion, and, at a
minimum, will result in significant delay and waste of time,” Downing
wrote on Friday. “Evidence concerning Mr. Yanukovych, the Party of
Regions, and the work that Mr. Manafort performed on their behalf poses
the substantial risk that the jurors will be sidetracked by Mr.
Yanukovych’s controversial tenure as Ukraine’s president, his removal
from power in the midst of public protests, the charges of treason
brought against him by the Ukrainian government, and his current exile
in Russia.”
Mueller: “Indeed.”
(ok, I made up the Mueller response)
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I’m right next door to you in Santa Cruz county, and when I was last called up just a little while ago, it looked like about 100+ in the pool there, too.
It was a particularly stupid gang-related murder case (car-to-car shooting in the middle of downtown), and while I am generally happy to do my civic duty as a juror, I was not particularly sad this time when the two week expected timeframe of the trial conflicted with already-paid-for work travel, and I had to request (and was granted) an excuse for hardship.
I was part of a jury pool that size. I think I was #68 and they didn’t find a full jury until they hit 62 or so. It was a case of a guy who broke into a County Sheriff"s house and stole his gun, and it was a 3rd strike. They lost a number of people who wanted out, so they said they couldn’t possibly be fair. Everyone else got asked if they had any bad experiences with law enforcement. That tossed all the folks still mad about their last traffic ticket, parents of adult children who’d run afoul of the law, friends of very innocent people who’d been railroaded 
, anybody related to cops, attorneys, etc. The jury selection took longer than the trial.
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I think that photographs can have a substantial impact at trial. I attended part of the Malheur trial and, for some stupid reason, a photo of Ammon Bundy’s family was projected on multiple screens in the courtroom during his testimony.
I wish I had more faith in the AUSAs who are working on this trial. The ones in Oregon couldn’t convict a guy caught red-handed with a stolen car.
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Baked Alaska is from the dessert menu. Who would be looking for it in a box lunch?
Yes, all that – and the jury was self-selected. An anonymous letter got the one possible hold out juror kicked off the jury. The fix was in.