Law & Order, Special Business Unit
In the criminal justice system, falsification of business records offenses are considered especially heinous. In New York City . . . .
Amidst all the gloating and all the stewing, I read an analysis of yesterday’s cause célèbre verdict and its timing that made sense to me. If you’re the kind of person who was either inclined to gloat or to stew about yesterday’s verdict, I believe this is precisely the kind of analysis you should read. It was written by one Bernard Stanford, a young legal analyst and writer. With that, I turn the mike over to Bernard:
Fraudulent falsification of business records is common. But it's usually an employee covering up embezzlement, or an owner cooking books to get investors; there's a clear party defrauded who had a right to accuracy.
In this case, the defrauded party is the State of New York, on the theory that businesses in New York have a general duty to the STATE to maintain accurate business records, and any deliberately false record, even if internal and not presented to anyone else, is inherently a fraud against the state. This is the novel interpretation that is controversial and untested. It was raised in pre-trial motions and Merchan ruled for the prosecution. My understanding is that that's not uncommon; trial court judges usually give the prosecution considerable leeway. But it will be reviewed on appeal.
That points to the other issue: once those matters of law (there were a few others) were ruled on unfavorably to Trump, this case was almost impossible to defend; the evidence he took the alleged actions was very strong, but whether those actions were actually criminal was contestable (just not really at the trial court level). So that raises an ethical question: should you bring a case against a politician running for office where the key potential defenses can only be adjudicated on appeal, such that the conviction but NOT the appeal will occur before the election? It should also be noted that this trial occurred unusually quickly for a felony charge in New York City. The most recent data I can find show that median time from indictment to conviction for felonies that went to trial was 683 days. By comparison, Trump's case - more complicated than most felonies, and with an all-star defense - was resolved in about 400 days. It raises the question of whether the nature and timing of the trial was intended to harm Trump politically for the 2024 election. This is further buttressed by the fact that, though New York had the case for years, including two years after Trump left office and any accordant immunity, he was still only charged after announcing his 2024 run. I hope that clarifies some of the issues here.
Because this all sounds fairly spot on to me, and also because I want to maintain an open mind, I want to know what’s right and what might be wrong with this analysis.