Is prison time on the cards for Donald Trump? | Planet America | ABC News

judge Dian Cel welcome to Planet America thank you first of all judge we should ask as an expert of New York courts were you happy with how the trial played out or did you think any of the critiques were reasonable by that if you mean the critiques by Donald Trump about the trial the answer is no they were not valid judge Juan Maran is a judge I worked alongside of for a number of years he is considered smart temperate patient and he exhibited all of those qualities throughout this trial this is a man who kept his cool even though every single day outside that courtroom Donald Trump was calling him corrupt conflicted and a disgrace I think it took a a lot of courage and strength for judge Sean to be able to put his head down follow the law and do his work so what do you make of the argument that these charges were so convoluted they shouldn't have been made in the first place well it's clear the charges were unique these charges took what would have been a misdemeanor falsifying business records and elevated them to low-level felonies and therefore one could argue that these were unusual charges chares but there was nothing inappropriate about them do you see any potentially convincing grounds for appeal from this case well the charges uh ironically enough because this was a unique legal Theory it could well be that a higher Court would say that either the charge the judge gave to the jury about the crimes with which Donald Trump was charged was inappropriately given or the theory was so unique it doesn't exist under New York law but frankly I would be surprised at that kind of a decision now surprised to find out that in New York the judges 55 page very detailed instructions are not allowed to be brought into the Jury Room and neither are transcripts for that matter uh as I said that's not judge Mam's fault that's just New York but how do you feel about that situation well I sat in that court for 25 years and before that I was a prosecutor in the New York state courts for 10 years so I'm very familiar with the mechanism of uh New York charging law it does seem strange to people who work in our federal court system or who work in other states but in New York unless the defense agrees you cannot submit written charges to a jury during their deliberations and even if the defense dis agrees the judge does not have to do it the theory behind that is that if the jury is confused about something in the charge our courts want the jury to come back into the courtroom to be able to ask the judge to clarify things there is a fear that if 12 people don't understand the law and they start trying to explain it to one another they're going to get it wrong so are you concerned about the safety of the jurors or judge michan with all this controversy well given the level of vital against the judge it does concern me and um I hope uh that he continues to remain safe I have no idea if he has is under any special protection or not he was very smart to keep the jurors as Anonymous as they could be although the lawyers knew their name they were never identified by name in court and so far uh several days after a verdict uh we still have no idea we haven't heard from any of them uh and don't know who they are and I think that's uh to their great Advantage judge when it comes to sentencing how much waiting should be given to the rather minor crime versus the rather major lack of REM Mor from Trump and the rather major contemp violations should the ladder matter at all well the judge has a wide range of discretion he could give Mr Trump everything from a slap on the wrist to four years in prison and possibly even more if he interprets these crimes to not have grown out of the same act that's another another question but let's say he goes from a slap on the wrist to four years now normally uh what would your thinking be as a judge well you've got a 77y old man with no prior criminal history he has a home he's gainfully employed or at least was until the last election right has a business uh one would think he would not get an incarcerator sentence or even probation but you do have to factor in other issues the fact that he has shown No Remorse the fact that he has been highly critical and in an improper way against the court look you can say you don't like what a court is doing to you or you don't like the way your case is going but to insist that the judge participating in the case is corrupt and the entire process is bogus really goes to the heart of our criminal justice system and I can see that upsetting a judge at sentencing time in addition everything is on the table during sentencing remember Mr Trump was just found responsible in a civil case for liing a woman who successfully claimed he success he sexually assaulted her he was just found responsible to the tune of almost a half a billion dollars for civil fraud matters involving the state of New York with his businesses so these are all matters that the judge can consider and how they play out in his mind well only he knows but I strongly think he will at least consider all of that okay and let's say Trump does get prison time am I right in saying that any prison time would likely be suspended first to the election and then if Trump won till the end of his presidency that's an interesting question and I have no idea theoretically the judge can completely ignore the upcoming election right that has nothing to do with the the charges with which Mr Trump has been found guilty and the jury's determination if he were any other person and he were going to be sentenced to jail the judge would simply impose sentence and Mr Trump and his lawyers would be free to go to the appell at courts and ask for a stay of that sentence pending the outcome of any appeal he might make so he might do that whether uh at sentencing if the judge is contemplating an incarcerator sentence if the uh the lawyers say you know your honor will you hold off until after the election it's within the judge's discretion to decide to do that or not so how will Trump's status as a felon impact his other three trials will this have any impact on those well conceivably if he is convicted in the other trials the fact that he is a convicted felon in this case again could go to sentencing in those cases but certainly during the fact finding phase the jury would never know that he's been convicted of another crime they're not allowed to know that during the trial so given you're an expert in this area are there any other ways that Trump's life is about to change now that he's a felon that the Press might not have considered yet well very interesting in some states uh as a convicted felon he would lose his right to vote for example the way it works in uh Florida where he is now a resident uh the Florida state law says whatever the law is in the state where you've been convicted is the law we will follow so in New York you cannot vote during a period of time that you're incarcerated so if Mr Trump is incarcerated let's say for the next two years he couldn't vote in this upcoming election if he gets a probationary sentence or a non- incarcerator sentence he could indeed vote in his own election now the theory of this case I think is that because Trump called the hush money payments legal expenses he was breaking the law but some have said if he just called them campaign expenses and paid the hush money out of his campaign fund he would also been breaking the law so he's kind of damned if he does damned if he doesn't is that argument valid well it does have validity I mean basically it is against the law to uh use funds inappropriately to influence the outcome of an election our election laws are are very strict here there are dollar limits on how much money you can give to your to a campaign there are filing requirements so given that the allegations were that he engaged in falsifying business records to cover up the fact that he was um Mis committing election fraud uh that's a valid crime now another concern has been Hillary Clinton back in 20122 settled with the feds a case where she had called her Oppo research in the 2016 election legal expenses much like Trump called this hush money legal expenses but the difference was she got to sell for for fine rather than having 34 felony convictions hanging over her head so is that a genuine double standard or are we comparing apples with oranges there well it's hard I quite frankly am not as familiar with the Hillary Clinton situation as I have been with the Donald Trump situation because I've been following it very closely um in the past month or so Hillary Clinton was for whatever reason was not prosecuted and was not convicted of crime so I don't know that you can compare the two now judge michan faced a unique situation with Trump and contempt ordinarily any other defendant carry on like Trump probably would have ended up in jail I expect but presumably michan knew that would be counterproductive in Trump's case so are there any other tactics or any other any other powers the judge could be given to deal with this unique situation well that was very unfortunate what wasent um there have been feelings all over the place on on this one uh perhaps the judge should have given Mr Trump a taste of jail you know there's jail and there's jail if you know what I mean he could have put him in a Cell for half a day uh to show him what it seems like uh what it is like rather uh if indeed he continued to violate the gag order uh obviously the judge was was very concerned about moving this trial along about not turning Mr Trump into a martyr and just getting through what was going to be a very difficult month or six weeks George How concerned have you been about the attacks on judicial Independence lately and I'm not talking here just about Judge Machan but also about Justice Alito criticizing or savaging judges seems to become a national sport does that worry you absolutely it worries me very very much having worked in this uh arena for 25 years I don't recall a time that judges were subjected to such uh backlash if you will because of their decisions or because of the work that they do look again you can criticize the courts you can say you don't like like a certain um crime being prosecuted or you don't like what some of the judges rulings are but to go to the heart of the judicial system itself and to say it's corrupt and the judge who's who's happens to be presiding over a particular case is conflicted or or a criminal himself I that's just wrong because it definitely undermines the criminal justice system in this country and that's a dangerous thing the courts stand I think between um Anarchy and uh and and peace and Tranquility in in in this country and in all countries and if people don't respect the word of the court I think we're going down a very bad Road judge Don cazel thanks for visiting Planet America thank you for

Channel: ABC News (Australia)

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Keywords: Australia, abc, abc news, news, donald trump, america, united states of america, trump, hush money, court, trial, judge, Diane Kiesel

Id: ba6w9_8AtgE

Length: 14min 13sec (853 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024