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Alvin Bragg and The Art of Not Taking Law Too Seriously

JonathanTurley

After the first week of testimony, the trial of Donald Trump is increasingly looking like a mad prosecution machine by lawyers who don’t take law too seriously. After all, the base charge is a simple misdemeanor under a New York law against falsifying business records. It was so implausible as to be impossible.

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The Return of Anthony Comstock: The Abortion Pill Case Raises a Law With A Dark and Troubling Past

JonathanTurley

The controversial law came up in oral arguments over the access to the abortion pill in the Supreme Court. That 151-year-old law banned the mailing of materials that were deemed “obscene, lewd, [or] lascivious.” For some of us, this is a painful reminder that the law continues to linger on our books.

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Rittenhouse Goes To Jury After Case Collapses in Court

JonathanTurley

Rittenhouse is facing six charges that range from first-degree homicide to a misdemeanor of being a minor in possession of a dangerous weapon. At this stage, the prosecution may celebrate even a misdemeanor conviction. It is either the product of systemic errors or systemic racism. Prosecution’s bumpy start, and finish.

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California Dreaming: Newsom’s Kidnapping Claim Against DeSantis is Long on Politics and Short on the Law

JonathanTurley

First, let’s look at the law. The California provision states that kidnapping involves someone who “abducts or takes by force or fraud any person contrary to the law of the place where that act is committed, and brings, sends, or conveys that person within the limits of this state.”

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A Manhattan Canned Hunt: The Trump Jury is Out But is the Case in the Bag?

JonathanTurley

In one of the most egregious moments, Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the jury that it is an established fact that former Trump counsel Michael Cohen committed a federal election law violation on the direct orders of Donald Trump. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School.

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The Closing: Trump’s Final Argument Must Be Clarity to Chaos in Merchan’s Courtroom

JonathanTurley

Trump’s lawyers are defending a former president who is charged under a state misdemeanor which died years ago under the statute of limitations. The last crime is particularly controversial because Bragg has no authority to enforce federal law and the Justice Department declined any criminal charge.

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Bragg and the Jackson Pollock School of Prosecution: Why the Trump Trial Could End With a Hung Jury

JonathanTurley

For many of us, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has created a new school of abstract law where there is no need for objective meaning. Bragg has achieved the same effect by regenerating a dead misdemeanor on falsifying business records as 34 felony counts. Pollock was famous for his painting drips on large canvases.

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