Georgia RICO Trials

[Opti]

Aug 30, 2024 22:56:17 GMT -5 tallguy said:

Aug 30, 2024 21:57:20 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Since you asked:

I started with a review of "what they have charged Trump and company with" available here: Read the full Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 allies It is lengthy and I didn't read all of it. I focused on the select charges involving Trump, which is only 13 of the 41 counts in the indictment. tallguy correctly indicated that some defendants had pled guilty. I am not sure if any of the charges they so pled were ones that Trump was charged with also.

The first count is the big one covering all defendants, it is the conspiracy charge, It is based on 161 acts listed in the indictment. The other counts are based on singular acts.

I don't see the elected county district attorney being able to handle the day to day trial process. The responsibilities of the office are too far reaching for her to be tied up exclusively with one trial for an extended period of time. So other attorneys will have to handle it.

I question whether there is an attorney working as an assistant district attorney at the county level anywhere who can clearly guide a jury through testimony proving 161 different acts done over years throughout the country. Anyone demonstrating anything close to that skill level would have been enticed to a bigger and better job years ago.

I see a bogged down process leading to at best a conviction on a couple of the lesser counts and a hung jury on the conspiracy charge.

My two cents since you asked. 

I'm not so sure that is the case.  This is so high-profile that a win is necessary, and it can totally make a career.  Additionally, Trump and his team have done so much to make it personal that she may be even more driven to handle it herself.  I would also anticipate a number of delays during the trial so it is not like she would be totally taken up with it at all times.  It is possible that she may delegate certain parts to other prosecutors, but I have difficulty seeing how she would take herself out of it.

It is high profile, but it can also break a career. She has already taken some hits in the courtroom and probably personal death threats and the like before. I am not sure what her best move is on this, but the good news to me is it is up to her how she chooses to run it. If she prefers to pick the best person in her office to run it, that is not her, that might be the wisest course.

Trials are uncertain, politics are uncertain. What is certain is Trump will drag this out as long as possible whining and possibly sleeping his way through. His sheeple supporters will do their best to make the prosecution's lives miserable. They will go after court reporters and anyone a certain someone points out. Maybe they should just invite RFK Jr. to observe. It will be a distraction, and we can learn if there is something other than a dead bear, and a dead shark head in his past.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 30, 2024 22:56:17 GMT -5 tallguy said:

Aug 30, 2024 21:57:20 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Since you asked:

I started with a review of "what they have charged Trump and company with" available here: Read the full Georgia indictment against Trump and 18 allies It is lengthy and I didn't read all of it. I focused on the select charges involving Trump, which is only 13 of the 41 counts in the indictment. tallguy correctly indicated that some defendants had pled guilty. I am not sure if any of the charges they so pled were ones that Trump was charged with also.

The first count is the big one covering all defendants, it is the conspiracy charge, It is based on 161 acts listed in the indictment. The other counts are based on singular acts.

I don't see the elected county district attorney being able to handle the day to day trial process. The responsibilities of the office are too far reaching for her to be tied up exclusively with one trial for an extended period of time. So other attorneys will have to handle it.

I question whether there is an attorney working as an assistant district attorney at the county level anywhere who can clearly guide a jury through testimony proving 161 different acts done over years throughout the country. Anyone demonstrating anything close to that skill level would have been enticed to a bigger and better job years ago.

I see a bogged down process leading to at best a conviction on a couple of the lesser counts and a hung jury on the conspiracy charge.

My two cents since you asked. 

I'm not so sure that is the case.  This is so high-profile that a win is necessary, and it can totally make a career.  Additionally, Trump and his team have done so much to make it personal that she may be even more driven to handle it herself.  I would also anticipate a number of delays during the trial so it is not like she would be totally taken up with it at all times.  It is possible that she may delegate certain parts to other prosecutors, but I have difficulty seeing how she would take herself out of it.

i don't think it is taking ANY of her time right now, but i might be mistaken.  DA's have to be able to handle multiple cases to be worth their weight, and my impression is that Fani W is more than worth her weight.

[Pink Cashmere]

I have continued to watch/listen to live coverage of the YSL trial. It is something interesting to listen to during my workday. 

The prosecutor for the last few days has been Adriane Love, the Chief Deputy District Attorney for Fulton County. I ASSume her title means she is supposedly one of the better attorneys working for the DA, but I’m not sure.

I am not impressed. The defense attorneys are making her and the DA’s office look like bumbling idiots at best and I guess what I will just call unethical. 

Honestly, if I was a juror on this case, and had to decide today, just on what I’ve watched so far, I would say not guilty. Because yes, the state’s witnesses have committed many crimes, but so far what I have watched of the courtroom proceedings, they were committing crimes for their own personal reasons, and not because Jeffrey Williams asked or told them to. That is what the state’s witnesses are saying, the ones that I’ve watched their testimony….. yes, I did this and that, but it had nothing to do with YSL or Jeffrey Williams. And when the defense attorneys cross examines the state’s witnesses, there is more to the story than what the prosecutors presented, and their testimony supports what they say about their criminal acts having nothing to do with YSL or Jeffrey Williams. 

I’m not saying one thing or another about whether Young Thug was involved in criminal activity, I am just saying that what I’ve watched so far of the courtroom proceedings, does not prove that the crimes the state’s witnesses committed, were on behalf of YSL or at Young Thug’s direction. 

I am watching the trial because I got interested in it (and because I get so bored at work). I’m not the smartest person in the world, but I would think that someone on Trump’s defense team is probably watching it too, to learn how the state attorneys work when prosecuting a case with RICO charges. But maybe not, that’s just how I think.

At least one of the defense attorneys on this case is reportedly being paid millions of dollars by his client, Jeffrey Williams aka Young Thug, who the state is really after. I am sure that if Trump can still find any attorneys willing to work for him, he has the means to pay more for attorneys than Young Thug has. So when I watch/listen, it is in the back of my uneducated mind that how well or not the state is handling this case says something about how well (or not) they might handle Trump’s case. 

I understand that the YSL trial is a different kind of case than Trump’s, even though they both have RICO charges. But the YSL case is enough of a mess and gets messier the more I watch, that I just don’t see the Trump case going well on the state’s side. Ms. Willis might be great at what she does in court, but that doesn’t matter if she won’t be the prosecutor in court for Trump’s case. She’s already made at least one mistake that everyone knows about, by mixing business and her personal life.

FTR, I do want Trump and company to be held accountable for any and every law that they broke that Ms. Willis’ office has charged them with. I am just saying that I’m not all that confident that Ms. Willis’ attorneys’ are good enough for what they are being tasked with. 

[tallguy]

If it helps, Trump's ability to get top-flight attorneys to work for him has nosedived over the last few years.  Have you at all followed the clown show that the Trump legal team has been for several years?

[Pink Cashmere]

Sept 6, 2024 20:34:37 GMT -5 tallguy said:

If it helps, Trump's ability to get top-flight attorneys to work for him has nosedived over the last few years.  Have you at all followed the clown show that the Trump legal team has been for several years?

Yes, that does give me a little hope. But I do think it will be a total mockery of our legal system that we are supposed to have good faith in, for prosecutors AND defense attorneys to all look like clowns during a trial that is so important IRT our nation and the laws concerning our elections. 

I’m not saying that I hope Donald Trump and company have top notch attorneys, because as I’ve already said, I want him and his people to be held accountable for any and all laws that they broke. I’m just saying that 8 believe that courtroom proceedings should not be a shitshow of clowns acting and looking like fools for any case, and especially not on a case as serious and important as the one that the DA’s office of Fulton County has filed against Donald Trump.

[Pink Cashmere]

As I have continued to watch the YSL trial, the Fulton County DA’s office looks more incompetent by the day. Almost every day, they get fussed at by the judge for being unorganized and not doing things in a proper and/or timely manner.

The last couple of days have been them calling police officers and crime scene techs to the witness stand, and doing things like going through dozens of pictures, one by one, asking if that is a marker for a shell casing at the scene of a shooting, then another few dozen showing each defect (bullet hole) inside and outside the different residences. I read the live chat as much as I can, while I listen to/watch the live feed, and I am not the only person that is confused about why they are being so tedious about shootings that they haven’t connected the dots with, to show how they might be related to YSL. And that is with being able to hear some of the discussions between the attorneys and judge that the jury is not in the courtroom to hear. And it’s still very confusing why they are spending all day with witnesses from law enforcement that were on the scene at these shootings. Out of the 3 or 4 shootings they went into all of this detail with, I can only 1 makes sense IRT how they are trying to connect them to YSL. And the main witness that was charged with that shooting the defense attorneys got it out of him what it was really about, and it had nothing to do with YSL.

Now there is some controversy in public opinion about a witness they are forcing to appear in court asap, whose attorney says he has been in the hospital 10 times over the last 4 months and recently had 2 blood transfusions. He is very sick because he has sickle cell anemia, and is currently on OxyContin for pain. The state issued a warrant for his arrest, he was arrested at the hospital and taken to Fulton County Jail. Then they had to take him back to the hospital because he was/is so sick. The state attorneys and the judge say that when he is released from the hospital, he has to come straight to court, and that him being on strong opiods should not affect his mental state or ability to correctly answer questions. But last week, when they showed video of one of their witnesses agreeing to a plead deal, the prosecutor asked if he was under the influence of any alcohol, medicines or drugs, and whether he was prescribed any medicine that he hadn’t taken that day, right after he was sworn in. 

So how is it okay for somebody that they want to testify, to be on opiods during his testimony? I don’t really know his story, I think they want him to testify because he snitched on his friends and I think he was one of the bad guys even though he’s not a part of this indictment. But if he was running around shooting and killing people, I don’t really care about him having sickle cell anemia, because he had it back then too when he was wreaking havoc on the streets, IF that is true.

But at the same time, I don’t think people are necessarily in their right minds when they are on strong opiods, so how is he a good witness?

I want to have confidence in Ms. Willis, but the way this trial is going, I would think she would tell her attorneys to get their shit together and stop fumbling this case to the point that the judge fusses at them every day for not doing what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it. And also, to show some actual proof for their case, besides witnesses that they end up trying to perjure themselves, social media posts, song lyrics, and pictures of shell casings and bullet holes that nobody understands has to do with anything. 

If I can’t even make this trial make sense, and I hear things the jury doesn’t get to hear, I can’t imagine being an actual juror on the case. The jurors have been told by the judge I don’t know how many times, to erase something from their minds that the state was not supposed to say or show. How can they NOT be confused?

The Fulton County DA’s office is not ready for Trump, even if his attorneys are goofy too.

[Pink Cashmere]

I originally started this thread because I was watching past and live videos of the court proceedings of a RICO case currently being tried in Fulton County, Georgia, and I was concerned about whether the DA’s office is really capable of handling the Trump case. I am still watching the current trial, and I hope that it is okay to keep talking about it here, since one of the reasons I am interested in it, is because I believe that the state needs to be on their p’s and q’s with Trump’s trial.

Today was not a good day for Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love. The judge fussed at her again for wasting time meant for evidence to be presented to the jurors, by not submitting information to the court and defense attorneys in an organized and timely manner, and that kind of thing repeatedly having to be sorted out while the jurors are waiting. This has been an ongoing problem that the state has been called out on many times, and fussed at about. 

Later, the defense attorneys asked to approach the bench about an objection to something the state wanted to present to the witness on the stand. There is no audio when they approach the bench, and the video goes to the state seal in the courtroom. So they said whatever they said when they approached, then Ms. Love continued with the witness. IIRC, it was a redirect. 

A few minutes later, one of the defense attorneys said they wanted to file a motion and the jury and witness were sent out of the courtroom again. The motion was for a mistrial (again!) because they felt that Ms. Love had been disingenuous about what she’d said when they were at the bench, and went somewhere she wasn’t supposed to with the witness, contrary to what she’d said when they were all talking to the judge.

The judge said she did not want to “malign the prosecutor”, but she was clearly very aggravated and said that Ms. Love was asked specific questions about the issue by her (the judge) and the defense attorneys and she (the judge) accepted that Ms. Love was being truthful, and said maybe without explicitly saying it, that Ms. Love lied to her and the defense attorneys. The judge said that she doesn’t want to believe that all of the “mistakes” Ms. Love has made have been purposeful, but because Ms. Love has so many years of experience and still keeps doing the same kinds of things repeatedly, at some point it is reasonable to wonder if it IS purposeful. She said that the only other thing she can think is that Ms. Love is just unorganized and trying to figure out how to try the case as she goes along, and that the haphazard way that she is doing things is making the trial more difficult than it has to be. 

The judge was so irritated that she had to take a short recess after she fussed at Ms. Love that time. She came back and denied the motion for a mistrial, and ended up once again, instructing the jury to forget what they’d just been shown and what they heard. That has happened so many times during this trial, that I can’t imagine how the jurors can keep up with what they are supposed to remember and consider, and what they have been told to forget that they saw and heard.

The thing about a mistrial is that the main defendant, Jeffrey Williams aka Young Thug, requested or whatever, a speedy trial in the beginning. The way that works means that the time that could be used to start the trial has already been used, so if this becomes a mistrial, the state is already out of time to try the case again. That is the short version of my understanding. 

The defense attorneys called it today, what they believe it is, ongoing prosecutorial misconduct, and cited case law where that is cause for a mistrial. 

That is me just saying what happened today, without getting into other things that make the state look shady and incompetent. So 2 things, 1. I  believe the Fulton County DA’s office plays dirty, and I feel for any defendant that can’t afford to pay for a good or better attorney. 2. I believe that Trump’s trial is going to be even more of a shitshow.

Ms. Willis is Ms. Love’s boss, right? This YSL trial is not in the news much anymore, but I would still think that it’s big enough that Ms. Willis would insist that Ms. Love get her shit together since it’s being shown in real time for the whole world to watch. Because people ARE watching. When I watch/listen to it live, there are over 20k people watching the same channel that I am, and the videos get hundreds of thousands of views, with comments from people all over the world. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Willis is having some problems with another case dealing with some more controversy regarding her and/or her office, right? Idk the details, even though there are videos from that courtroom too. 

I am disappointed and discouraged.

[Pink Cashmere]

I am back again with some concerns about the current RICO trial in Fulton County, Georgia.

It pains me to admit that I am no longer a fan of Fani Willis and I am so disturbed by some things, that if I lived in Fulton County, I would be really hesitant to re-elect her. Here a few reasons….

When she was defending herself against the allegations regarding her relationship with Nathan Wade, she said that cell phone records are not reliable enough to prove that he was at her house in Fulton County when evidence was shown to prove that his cell phone was pinging off cell towers near her home. But her state attorneys are trying to use the same kind of evidence with experts that talk about how cell phones can prove a person’s location, in the YSL Rico trial. That kind of evidence is either true or not, and I have an issue with it not being turned when it benefits Ms. Willis, but not true when her office is prosecuting somebody else. 

The prosecutors continue to make mistakes, almost daily, even with the current judge fussing and getting upset with them. 

Last week, a lead detective on a murder case that is a big deal in this trial even though it happened almost 10 years ago, and everybody the state originally charged with the murder, they dropped the charges, and nobody knows even today who actually committed the murder and has evidence to prove it…. he said something he shouldn’t have said on the witness stand. And the defense made yet another motion for a mistrial, because he is a seasoned LEO who should know what he should and and should not say in court. This was his 3rd or 4th time being called as a witness during this trial, and was going to be called again, but the judge ruled that his testimony that day had to be “forgotten” by the jurors (which they have been instructed to do so many times, that I don’t even know how they can realistically be expected to keep it all straight in their minds) and the sanction was that he couldn’t be a witness anymore. The judge even agreed that the LEO had to have known better as a seasoned professional, and was willing to bring him back in the courtroom just to fuss at him, but the defense declined and didn’t want her to do that, because it would’ve shine even more of a spotlight on what he’d said.

The day before that (if I have my days correct), before they brought the jurors in, the judge said that some random person in Germany sent an email fussing about how chief deputy Love is handling the case, and FANI WILLIS responded to the email, with Ms. Love and THE COURT as recipients, praising Ms. Love. The judge said when she received the email from Ms. Willis, she immediately forwarded it to all of the defense attorneys, because it shouldn’t have been sent to her in the first place. WTF Ms. Willis?!

People have been accusing this judge of helping the prosecutors when they mess up, even when they really mess up and she denies the defense attorneys motions for mistrials.

So what happened today, the state messed up again, and one of the defense attorneys made yet another motion for a mistrial, saying again that they felt like they were being goaded into asking for a mistrial. This was yet another big deal on the part of the state, and the judge actually said today while fussing at the attorneys that she was trying to clean up their sloppy work, to avoid having wasted 10 or 11 months of people’s time on this case. She literally said that, which confirmed people’s thoughts that she prefers to try to help the state and help clean up their messes, instead of truly being impartial, because she really wants to avoid a mistrial. 

It seems to be a really big deal for her, wasting even more of the jurors’ time, and she gets upset when she has to deal with the attorneys going back and forth over things that could’ve been sorted out when the jurors were not waiting outside of the courtroom, which is usually the state’s fault and why she keeps fussing at them. But in my unprofessional opinion, I think she was referring to the jurors when she said that, since she gets upset about keeping them waiting outside the courtroom. Never mind that the guys charged in this case, have been locked up for 2 years now, and are facing decades of life in prison if they are convicted. To be clear, if they are guilty if what they are accused of, I am all for them being held accountable, but I also believe that the Justice should be fair and not the shitshow that this trial has been.

She was so upset today that she took a break for herself. When she came back, she said that she denied the motion for a mistrial with prejudice and asked the attorney that made the motion if she wanted a mistrial without prejudice. The judge asked what other defense attorneys wanted the same and said that a mistrial without prejudice means the state can just start over trying the case again. The defense attorneys asked for a minute to talk, the cameras went back to the state seal. An hour or so later, the cameras came back and all we heard was the judge saying that court was adjourned for the day, a couple hours before the official end of their day. The cameras were immediately cut off after that.

So it is unknown to the public what really happened with the motion for mistrial. Several bloggers in the courtroom say that Ms. Love crashed out while the cameras were off, but offered no more details before I stopped looking at it. From what I’ve seen of  Ms. Love and her antics, I don’t doubt that it’s true that she lost it, since this is the closest the defense attorneys have come to actually getting a mistrial, even though have made motions for it at least once/week since I’ve been watching. 

The problem for the defense attorneys is that even if there is a mistrial without prejudice, that means the sate can just retry the case again. Young Thug’s motion for a “speedy” trial at the beginning, means the state has only 2 or 3 months to retry the case. This time, it took 10 months just to select the jurors. And because he is the accused leader of the “gang”, I’m not sure what that means for his codefendants, if the clock runs out on the state to retry the case.

Anyway, I am sharing all of that, to say again that I have lost all hope in Ms. Willis and her team being competent enough to win the case against Donald Trump, unless he is only able to hire attorneys that know as much about defending a case as I do. Which is nothing.

I was all thrilled when Ms. Willis’s offices filed the charges against Trump and company. But she can’t even keep her own self out of trouble, and her DA’s do a lot of shady shit and seem to be incompetent, so much so that the judge that took over the case, said today that they do sloppy work. I think it is a problem for her that she actually said that she was trying to fix their sloppiness, in an effort to avoid the time that people have spent on the trial, because I don’t think that’s really her job, bur she said what she said.

[finnime]

That's a real shit show, Pink Cashmere. What a waste. And I'm with you, it does not bode well for holding Trump to account.

[Pink Cashmere]

Court proceedings for this case were canceled yesterday and today. 

There is talk that they started negotiating plea deals Wednesday evening, but there is nothing official to confirm that. It does seem to be true that the defense attorneys had meetings with Ms. Willis Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, but I can’t remember a legitimate source to confirm that that is really true either.

Even being able to watch and hear some of the stuff going on in the background between the lawyers and the judge, that the jurors are not privy to, the trial is still very confusing. The state’s witnesses are testifying to many different incidents, and it’s difficult to try to tie it all together, because it seems to be so random about who is testifying about what, on any given day.

But what seems obvious, is that every witness so far that has been a witness to a crime or a victim of a crime, never mentions Jeffrey Williams aka Young Thug. Even the witnesses the state prosecutors have forced to testify by hook or crook, even if they admit to the crimes they committed, they all say that what they were doing, had nothing to do with Young Thug, and he didn’t even know what they were doing. Every time the defense attorneys have cross examined those witnesses, it came out that the real reasons they did what they did was due to personal beefs over women and bullshit, and nothing to do with Young Thug or him telling them to do this or that, and commit those crimes.

Even the LEOs that have testified, never did things like look into his financial records or really did anything to try to tie him to the crimes they were investigating, other than doing what has been determined to be an illegal search of one of his homes at some point. 

All of the testimony I’ve seen so far, shows that he actually distanced himself from his friends that he grew up with, because they wouldn’t act right. All of the ones that took plea deals or were compelled to testify in some other way, just because they knew him way back when, say he stopped fooling with them almost 10 years ago, when all of the stuff this case is about started happening, after he was becoming famous for his music.

Idk, maybe he really was a mastermind of a gang, but nothing I’ve seen watching the trial so far, proves that. And I’m not saying that I believe he was an angel. He’s from the streets, and no doubt did “street” kind of shit. But that doesn’t mean he is guilty of what he is accused of. I’ve known “street” people my entire adult life, and just because they did “street” kind of stuff, didn’t mean they were the mastermind behind a gang. They were mostly just idiots doing their own thing.

[Pink Cashmere]

Monday afternoon, cameras were finally allowed in the courtroom again, while the defendant whose attorney made the motion for a mistrial last Wednesday, that led to all of this extra chaos, agreed to a plea deal.

During the process, the state attorney, while talking about all of the things he had been charged with, said that they did not believe that he committed the murder they had charged him with. WTF?! Why was he even charged with it if they didn’t believe he actually did it.

Out of all of the laundry list of things the state had charged him with, he pled guilty to ONE thing, selling drugs. His attorney made it clear that his client did not plead guilty to any of the charges regarding guns or violent acts, including murder, or any gang charges, and nothing to do with saying YSL was a gang. 

Today, when cameras were finally allowed in the courtroom this afternoon, 2 more defendants had made plea deals.

So whenever the jurors come back, I don’t know how it will be explained that there are now 3 defendants instead of the 6 they started with. And idk what that means for the remaining defendants. It is rumored, so I don’t know for fact, that the state has not offered a plea deal to Jeffrey Williams aka Young Thug, who is accused of being the mastermind behind all of these crimes, and even in interrogations that have been played during the trial, detectives have said that he was the “big fish” that they were really after. Even though so far, there has been no real evidence to prove that he is what they say he was or even that he knew what his friends that he from the ‘hood were doing. They say themselves that he didn’t even know about the shit they were doing. And a lot of the testimony has been that when he did find out they did something crazy, he often tried to make it right and he distanced himself from them.

When the prosecutor was speaking today during one of the plea deals and she was talking about the crimes the defendant had committed, she literally repeated texts between the defendant and Jeffrey Williams where Jeffrey Williams was clearly not okay with what the defendant had done. How does that make sense with the state also saying that Jeffrey Williams was telling these people to commit those crimes?

Crime is a big deal where I live, to the point that I don’t really feel safe even though I live in the suburbs now. The crime from the city is creeping into the suburbs. I am all for criminals being held accountable for what they do. But I am really disheartened by what I’ve seen while watching this trial, about how the justice system really works, which makes me wonder how many people have been convicted of crimes just because they couldn’t afford good lawyers to defend them against prosecutors that play dirty. In this case, at least one witness that had nothing to do with any of the bs, his vehicle just got 2 bullet holes while parked outside of a friends’ home (and I’m not trying to minimize what happened, by saying “just”) was harassed by the state to the point that he almost lost his job because they kept coming there and threatening to arrest him if he didn’t testify. How is that okay?

I started this thread because I was concerned about the RICO charges against Donald Trump and company once I started watching this RICO trial and started doubting Fulton County DA’s office’s competence IRT to handling the Trump case. Now I am also bothered about what I’ve seen during this trial, about how the justice system really works sometimes. I’ve heard stories about it, but it hits differently actually watching it in real time.

[finnime]

I think court trials only rarely have a satisfying result, where the good guy convincingly win. The bad guys always have deals worked out and the not-so-bad guys are often stuck. MNSHO
It's frustrating but legal stuff often is an arcane process with results that are hard to fathom.

[ken a.k.a OMK]

I don't believe in the old "judged by your peers" court trials. I think justice would be better served by a court of judges, who are trained in the judicial system. Lawyers are paid to confuse juries. 

[Pink Cashmere]

Jeffery Williams aka Young Thug took a non negotiated plea deal today. The state had offered Williams 15 years of probation, but he had to say that YSL was a gang and there were some special conditions that would have hindered his ability to continue his music career. So he rejected the offer and decided to just take his chances with the judge. His attorney, Brian Steel, was against it, but Williams told him that if there was a chance he could go home today, he had to do it and take the risk with the judge.

When it was all said and done, the judge said that since the state had offered him probation, they obviously didn’t think he would be a danger to society if he went home today, so she gave him 15 years of probation with a 20 year sentence “backloaded”. If he successfully completes the 15 years of probation, the 20 year sentence is suspended. He has to stay out of metro Atlanta, except for certain specific situations.

So now there are 2 defendants left. 

[gs11rmb]

I don't think it's much of a 'win' for the DA's office.  It does make me think the case was very weak right from the start.  I hope that is not the case for Trump.

[billisonboard]

Nov 1, 2024 6:48:22 GMT -5 gs11rmb said:

I don't think it's much of a 'win' for the DA's office.  It does make me think the case was very weak right from the start.  I hope that is not the case for Trump.

A strong case poorly presented is just as likely to end in acquittal as a weak case well presented. I do amateur theater. When attending a show presented by others, I evaluate both the play and the presentation. I have watched well written plays poorly done and poorly written plays done as well as the material allows.

[Pink Cashmere]

While I was laid up, I rewatched 1 day of Kenneth Copeland’s testimony in the YT case. YT’s attorney, Brian Steel has said along (IIRC, even in his opening statement) that Copeland killed Donavan Thomas, a murder that is a big part of this trial. FTR, YT was not charged with the murder, they are tying him to it by saying he was calling the shots of the YSL “gang” and he ordered the hit, even though there’s been proof that he and Thomas were actually friends and worked in music together. 

It has been said in court that during the ex parte meeting that resulted in the first judge being recused, during parts of the meeting that were left out of the transcripts, Kenneth Copeland said he killed Thomas. State attorney Hilton told him (I’m not sure if it was in the transcript or not) that if he admitted to the murder on the stand, they were going to charge him with perjury and send him to jail.

On the day I rewatched yesterday, Copeland basically said he committed the murder, without actually saying it, more than once. Every time, Hylton changed the subject instead of digging deeper. The last time, she flat out asked him if he killed Thomas. He paused and said “huh”, she repeated the question, he said “huh” again, she repeated the question again. He paused and shook his head. She said “you’re shaking your head, does that mean no”. He said “no”. Which could’ve meant his answer meant that he was saying no he didn’t kill Thomas, OR that his answer to her last question was no. It was never clarified.

Later in the day, she started asking about one of his close friends that was killed just a few weeks prior. He gets very emotional about that friend. He ended up blurting out that what happened to Thomas had nothing to do with YSL, it was because of some beefs his friend had. He gave some details after asking the judge for confirmation that his immunity meant that he couldn’t be charged for anything he admitted to. Then a little more, after he asked the judge for confirmation that nothing he said could be used against him with the state or the feds. 

I was reminded that ever since I first saw his testimony, I believed that he and his friend committed the murder that the state is trying to pin on other people, and that the state knows it. But in their eagerness to get YT, they made the killer, or someone who probably was at least the driver, their star witness even though he has repeatedly said that he was constantly telling detectives and investigators lies on other people back then because he wasn’t going to tell on himself, and gave him immunity, in order to force him to testify.

I don’t believe that is how the justice system is supposed to work. 

FWIW, the defense attorneys on cross, pointed out all the things the investigators did not do to verify many of the things even witness says he lied about, but the DA used for this trial anyway.

[Pink Cashmere]

The judge, state and defense attorneys started yesterday afternoon and have spent all day today trying to sort out jury instructions. They are in a break right now. The state rested their case and the defense attorneys chose not to call any witnesses. 

The state brought in their attorney that is supposed to be a RICO expert to help with the jury instructions, because even Judge Whitaker is confused about some things. I think this is her first RICO trial. There have also been some questions asked that the RICO “expert” didn’t know clear answers to.

If a room full of attorneys and a judge, are having trouble sorting this stuff out, how is a jury made up of people who aren’t likely to have gone to law school supposed to make sense of it?

For example, there are almost 200 overt acts listed in the indictment. Overt acts do not have to be criminal acts. Some of them are beyond the statute of limitations, so they can’t be used on their own for a conviction, unless there at least one that is still within the statute of limitations is included for a conviction. But the jury has to consider each one of them, whether within or beyond the statute of limitations. And if they decide one thing about some of the overt acts, their decision must be unanimous, but if they use them in another way to convict, they do not have to be unanimous, one juror using a specific overt act for that particular reason to convict, is enough. Even if no other juror thinks that specific overt act matters.

Then there is all of the stuff the state allowed to be presented visually or verbally, that the jurors were instructed to forget they heard or saw.

The jurors basically need a class to understand this long list of instructions that the judge and attorneys are still working on. One of the jurors has already written an email to the judge expressing his frustration with how long the trial has taken him away from his real life, and his low opinion of the state’s tactics. 

If I was a juror faced with trying to understand the convoluted instructions regarding RICO charges, I would err on the side of caution and just find them not guilty. I couldn’t find them guilty based on rules that I don’t even understand. Especially since the most serious charges, murder, the state has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt with real evidence, that either of them committed those murders. There has been other evidence presented, by experts the state called, that even contradicted the state’s theories about the murders.

This is not justice. It’s not even justice for the murder victims. One of the victim’s family has made statements about the state not even trying to find the real killer, and were lazy and sloppy in their investigation.

This is horrible.