(Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Photos)
On the eve of the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, Trump’s legal professionals are making one final push to maximally piss of Choose Lewis Kaplan earlier than going through the jury.
The case was initially filed in 2019, and since then Trump has ducked course of, eliminated to federal courtroom, claimed that he was appearing as president when he implied that Carroll was too unattractive to assault, moved to dismiss and postpone numerous instances, and usually made himself obnoxious to the courtroom. Maybe if he’d been much less obstreperous and extra inclined to show his homework in on time, he’d have gotten a greater reception again in March when his sparklemagic lawyer Alina Habba filed a weird movement to exclude proof from Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, two different girls who accused Trump of creating undesirable sexual advances, on the grounds that maybe he hadn’t grabbed them by the genitals. She additionally sought to exclude the “Entry Hollywood” tape the place he famously bragged about his behavior of grabbing girls by the genitals.
Choose Kaplan rejected that movement, discovering that the testimony and tape had been pertinent underneath the Rule 415 FRE exception for propensity proof within the case of sexual assault. He additionally discovered that the movement was premature.
However not as premature as a movement for “clarification” filed by legal professional Joseph Tacopina this weekend during which he accused Carroll’s legal professionals of “clear efforts to teach and affect one among her key trial witnesses” by suggesting that there was confusion as to which a part of Stoynoff’s physique Trump had tried to make undesirable sexual contact with:
If Defendant, in keeping with Ms. Stoynoff, solely touched her shoulders and kissed her, and by no means touched or tried to the touch her genitals, then Your Honor’s conclusion that such proof isn’t sufficient for her testimony to be allowed ought to be conclusive. As a result of the second a part of Your Honor’s evaluation primarily based on different proof appears grounded within the uncertainty of whether or not Defendant really “groped” Ms. Stoynoff, we suggest the next earlier than Ms. Stoynoff is allowed to testify:
Defendant’s counsel merely asks a number of questions of the witness voir dire and outdoors the presence of the jury as to precisely what components of her physique Defendant allegedly touched or tried to the touch. If she testifies that he solely touched her shoulders and tried to kiss her, we might ask that Your Honor rethink the prior March 10 ruling and never enable her to testify.
[Blink, blink.]
Unsurprisingly, Choose Kaplan yeeted this one into the solar:
Though defendant characterizes his utility as one for clarification, the characterization is mistaken. The applying actually is a request that the Courtroom rethink a earlier ruling and, on reconsideration, to succeed in the opposition consequence.
The applying is premature as a result of any movement for reconsideration ought to have been filed properly earlier than this request.
Even when the applying had been well timed, the defendant has failed to point out, as can be essential to warrant reconsideration, that the Courtroom’s unique choice ignored issues or controlling choices.
And even when the defendant had made such a displaying, nothing he has put ahead warrants any aid from the prior choice or any voir dire examination.
The applying is denied.
At the very least the world will probably be spared watching Tacopina, who has behaved like a bull in a china store since he entered his look in February, attempting to question a sexual assault sufferer on the witness stand. However clearly there’s lots extra ugliness the place that got here from.
Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she writes about regulation and politics.
