Former President Donald Trump and his legal team have turned New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit into a spectacle, goading Judge Arthur Engoron, politicizing the proceedings, and spectacularly undermining norms of trial behavior.
That pattern continued on Wednesday, when Trump’s lawyers filed a motion for a mistrial that claimed Engoron’s handling of the trial has been tainted by political bias. (Engoron denied the motion on Friday afternoon.)
Trump’s strategy bears a resemblance to tactics employed by the defendants in the notorious ‘Chicago Seven’ criminal trial more than 50 years ago.
Trump’s strategy bears a resemblance to tactics employed by the defendants in the notorious “Chicago Seven” criminal trial more than 50 years ago, which resulted in the jury convictions being overturned on appeal.
Whether intentional or coincidental, the similarities between these trial strategies are informative — especially for Engoron.
When legal defense teams push and taunt their presiding judges, they are often hoping to make the judge overreact and make mistakes. If judges do take this bait and make errors, an appellate court could potentially conclude that the trial was unfair and reverse the judgment.
The four-month Chicago trial, which took place between 1969 and 1970, was chaotic and political. Eight defendants were originally charged with violating the Federal Anti-Riot Act, 18 U.S.C. 2101, along with additional crimes in connection with violent encounters between Chicago police and demonstrators protesting the Democratic National Convention in August 1968.
A mistrial was declared for defendant Bobby Seale, whom the judge had ordered bound and gagged in the courtroom for a portion of the trial (he was convicted of multiple charges of contempt of court). Two others were acquitted on all charges, and the remaining five were acquitted on some charges but found guilty of violating the Anti-Riot Act.
In New York, Engoron…
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