Judge’s Decision To Hold Trump’s Trial in Conservative Florida City Could Tilt Odds in Favor of Acquittal

Judge Aileen Cannon’s Goldilocks decision to set a May 20 date for the Mar-a-Lago criminal trial of President Trump telegraphs her willingness to preside over the case in the maelstrom of an election season in which the former president — now criminal defendant — has more than a puncher’s chance to be chosen the next one. The more significant ruling, though, could be where the trial takes place. The May 20 trial date is a species of compromise. Special Counsel Jack Smith had requested a December 11 start date, while the former president asked for an indefinite delay, maintaining that he cannot get a fair trial during the “pendency” of an election year. Judge Cannon was criticized, not least by an appellate court, for rulings favorable to the former president after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago last August. While Judge Cannon “rejects Defendants’ request to withhold setting of a schedule now,” she finds that the “Government’s proposed schedule is atypically accelerated and inconsistent with ensuring a fair trial,” given nine months of security footage, more than a million pages of nonclassified documents, and more than 1,500 pages that bear classified markings. The judge notes that the “Court is unaware of any searchable case in which a court has refused a complex designation under comparable circumstances,” suggesting that agreeing to Mr. Smith’s push for speed would put her out of step with how similar cases have been handled. She mentioned that “preparations for an accredited facility” to view classified materials must be executed. In declining to accede to an indefinite delay, Judge Cannon chose a day that falls after most of the Republican primaries but before the GOP will nominate its candidate at Milwaukee. On social media, Mr. Trump has called his prosecution “ELECTION INTERFERENCE,” an impression likely to be accentuated if he shuttles from Judge Cannon’s courtroom to his party’s coronation.Judge Cannon earmarked two weeks for the trial at Fort Pierce in southern Florida, where she sits. The counties from which Fort Pierce draws its juries were largely supportive of Mr. Trump in the last election, suggesting that location, if not the schedule, could be the former president’s ace in the hole. The trial will begin five months before the general election.At a pretrial conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump’s lawyers attempted to paint the prosecution as a political one, with President Biden “squaring off” against their client. Mr. Smith’s team pushed back, asserting that a grand jury in this district “returned an indictment of these defendants,” just as they would any others. He is, the government reminded Judge Cannon, a “private citizen” and “no longer the president.”Mr. Trump, who in his filing requesting a delay floated the “potential inability to select an impartial jury during a national Presidential election,” could find that a strategy of framing the litigation as a campaign by other means could prove effective — he could be a convicted felon facing jail time by November 2024.The presence of a high-profile defendant — let alone a politically polarizing one in the midst of an election — raises the specter of jury nullification. That is when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the evidence, regardless of whether they find that a crime has been committed beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court banned the practice as far back as 1895, but enforcement is elusive. While the practice has deep, if not always sanctioned, roots in English law, its most famous recent instance could be the O.J. Simpson verdict in 1995. A Los Angeles jury acquitted the football star of murder despite what appeared to be overwhelming evidence of guilt after his “dream team” of attorneys steered his trial into a referendum on racism. Judge Cannon, likely seeing that the next site of scrimmage between the two sides will be over the jury, chose to dodge — or delay — the issue in her Friday order. She noted that the “likelihood of insurmountable prejudice in jury selection stemming from publicity about the 2024 Presidential Election” is “unnecessary” to resolve “at this juncture.”

Judge’s Decision To Hold Trump’s Trial in Conservative Florida City Could Tilt Odds in Favor of Acquittal

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