You can’t have reversible error on an acquittal, can you?
It sure looks like he’s trying to get Manafort aquitted by making the jury think the prosecution is either inept or corrupt. Are any reporters digging into this judge’s finances? I wonder if he has any loans on the books from people who might want to see Mueller’s prosecutions fail?
I’ve previously read that that prosecution can only appeal an acquittal on very limited circumstances, like if the judge or jury has been bribed.
This judge seems to have lost his grip of ___________ (fill in the blank.)
The motion was well taken.
Lotta dementia going around.
First Trump, then Giuliani, and now Ellis. Maybe I should open a clinic – concierge medicine for the demented in high places
No fears, America, as step #1 in my rehab program will be resignation from any office of trust under the United States.
Not in a criminal case — unless, for example, the judge (in a bench trial) or the jury (in a jury trial) was bribed to ensure the acquittal, because in such a case it can be argued that the defendant was never in jeopardy at all. Thus, being put through an appeal would not constitute double jeopardy.
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I’ll bet Ellis is astonished, and a bit shaken, to discover that Mueller and his team aren’t the kind of counsel he’s usually faced with. They won’t be bullied.
This is correct. Appeal is only permissible (or, at least, not moot) from an acquittal if jeopardy never actually attached, i.e. there was never a genuine chance of conviction.
Isn’t the attempt to defraud also a crime? Why should they focus only on loans he got?
Shit. Why didn’t I check before I said the same thing?
Precisely. And that’s what Ellis has gotten wrong, and about which he has misled the jury. If I lie on a loan application, that’s fraud. Whether I got the loan or not is irrelevant.
Side note: if I do it alone, there’s no conspiracy. But if my accountant and I cook up the scheme together, you can add a conspiracy count to the fraud.
I’m 100% certain that nobody minds.
You usually take more time to explain and put things more felicitously than I do.
Thanks from the peanut gallery.
For us mortal observers, it’s more fun with you argue… usually you are both right!
So, according to this judge, if I walk into a bank and try to rob it, but don’t get away with any money, it’s not a crime?
He’s “usually faced with” AUSA’s and DoJ pros, all day, every day. What he’s not used to is presiding in a case where the stakes are so high and the public eye is so wide and focused that his usual “character” act is a problem.
The Federal district court bench has a lot of judges who are “characters” like this judge. We love to see them in movies. Every trial movie has a judge who’s a “character,” most of the time.
They can be a problem because juries usually fucking love them and they usually go out of their way to make juries love them by praising their service and making displays of respect for their time. The “characters” are major pains in the balls, though they often are very good judges who try tight cases. But they have to know when to rein it in.
In real life, they are major pains in the balls who are constantly on the verge of what I call “permissible impropriety,” i.e. comments and acts that aren’t reversible error but ought not to be done and the longer they’re on the bench, they more likely they are to do it. Lifetime tenure does that to some of them.
The Federal bench also has a lot of judges who are diligent, courteous, earnest, and careful of how they use their awesome power–most of these are judges who had to appear before one of the “characters.” Basically none of them, however, have any tolerance for time-wasting, disrespect or arrogance.
A lot of them are somewhere between these two extremes and it can be very hard for all of them not to cultivate some degree of eccentricity as they age and have increasingly few fucks to give. But truth to tell, however, I am a lot more concerned by the rigid ideologues and dimwitted cranks appointed by Bush II and Trump than other presidential picks who are merely cranky self-important eccentrics.
I think the judge just wants to get the trial over with and given that there are plenty of corrupt loans Manafort received, why not spend time on those?
Well the reason is that use of false documents is criminal even if the loan was denied and even if it it was not criminal, it shows a pattern. There is absolutely no doubt that Manafort was the person who orchestrated these fake loans, he can’t blame Gates.
I really doubt that this is going to lead to an acquittal.
What worries me more is that Ellis won’t give Manafort the sentence he deserves. He stole millions, he should get ten years at least.
That judge is very likely to be a Republican, and in todays environment, “republican” is a synonym for “corrupt”. My guess is that he is a Trump voter.
Precisely the parallel I was thinking of. I saunter into the local strip-mall credit union with a ski mask and an AR-15, and threaten to kill the tellers if they don’t hand over the cash. They look at me and say, “no.” I leave empty-handed. No harm, no foul, right? 