Jurors poised to get Trump case as NY trial nears end
Donald Trump’s federal trial in New York is nearing its end, with closing arguments scheduled to start Tuesday.
The former president has appeared nearly daily in the New York City courthouse over the past five weeks as prosecutors built the case to argue he falsified business records in 34 different instances. Throughout 19 witnesses and dozens of pieces of evidence, they tried to prove Trump disguised reimbursements to his former attorney Michael Cohen, who violated campaign finance laws when he paid adult film actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to stay quiet about a sexual encounter that allegedly happened a decade earlier.
Though Trump has been charged in four different criminal cases, this case is likely the only one to reach a trial ahead of the 2024 general election.
Now that both sides have rested their cases, 12 jurors will decide if the presumptive Republican nominee will also be a convicted felon.
Jurors were excused May 21, but both the prosecution and the defense returned in the afternoon to argue over the instructions Judge Juan Merchan will provide to the jury ahead of their deliberations.
Those instructions could be crucial to the outcome of the case. Merchan will tell the jury what the applicable law in the case is. He will then task them with not just deciding what happened factually in the case – for example, whether former President Donald Trump authorized Michael Cohen to pay Daniels hush money – but also determining whether Trump’s actions violated the law.
Jurors could stay late Tuesday in order to get through closing arguments from both sides. If they are able to come in Wednesday, typically an off day for this court, they could start deliberating then.
The 12 jurors must come to a unanimous decision to convict or acquit Trump.
There is no limit for how long a jury can take to deliberate, says Diana Florence,
a former Manhattan prosecutor.
If the group cannot come to a unanimous decision, it is considered a “hung jury” and the judge must declare a mistrial. “You know it when you see it when it comes to a hung jury,” she said.
But any deliberation taking at least three days would be considered a long time, according to Kevin J. O’Brien, a New York-based trial lawyer.
If the jury takes a long time reviewing and discussing the evidence, it could indicate good news for the prosecution, he said.
“Defense verdicts tend to be in quickly, because people have their views, and one or more jurors are not going to budge . ... They don’t go through the labor of weighing all the evidence,” O’Brien said. “But if they’re out three or four days, that tends to suggest they’re really looking at the evidence. And of course, the evidence favors the prosecution.”
If jury begins deliberation by Thursday, as the schedule indicates is possible, we could have a verdict by the end of the week, Florence said.
“Could it take longer? Sure,” she said. “That’s where it becomes anybody’s guess and it’s reading tea leaves.”