WASHINGTON (AP) — The statement in Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York has concluded after greater than 4 weeks and nearly two dozen witnesses, meaning the case is entering its crucial final phase with closing arguments, jury deliberations and possibly a verdict.
It is not possible to say how long it will all take, but in a groundbreaking process that has already been presented plenty of unforgettable momentsThis week could easily be an important.
Here’s what you’ll be able to expect in the approaching days:
What happens during closing arguments?
Starting Tuesday morning, prosecutors and defense attorneys can have their last opportunity to make closing arguments to the jury. The arguments are expected to take up most, if not all, of the day.
The arguments don’t constitute evidence within the case Trump is accused of falsifying business documents to cover up hush money payments throughout the 2016 presidential election to a porn star who claimed she had a sexual encounter with him ten years earlier. Instead, they’ll function hours-long summaries of the important thing points that attorneys plan to provide jurors before the panel disappears for closed-door deliberations.
Be sure prosecutors remind jurors that they’ll trust the financial records they’ve seen and the witnesses they’ve interviewed. These include Porn star Stormy Danielswhose report of an alleged sexual encounter with Trump is at the center of the case, and Trump’s former lawyer and private fixer Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump was directly involved within the hush money system and authorized payments.
It must be remembered that the defence, the only two witnesses called but not Trump, doesn’t should prove anything or persuade the jury of Trump's innocence.
To avoid a conviction, the defense simply has to persuade a minimum of one juror that the prosecution has not proven Trump's guilt beyond an affordable doubt – which is standard in criminal proceedings.
Expect the defense to attempt to refute the federal government's argument by disputing Daniels' testimony about her encounter with Trump in a hotel suite and by distancing Trump from the mechanisms for restitution to Cohen, who was answerable for paying Daniels the $130,000 in hush money.
The defense could also claim one last time that Trump's primary concern in paying the hush money was to guard his family from salacious stories, to not win the election.
And it’ll actually attack the credibility of Cohen, who pleaded guilty in reference to the payment and who accused by Trump's lawyers of lying even on the witness standThe value of his testimony, which the jury considers credible, will likely be of great importance to the end result of the case.
Since the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, it’ll present its closing argument last – in reverse order to the opening arguments that the prosecution presented first.
One last item before the jury deliberates
There could also be a critical moment on Wednesday morning before the jury begins its deliberations.
Judge Juan M. Merchan is anticipated to spend about an hour briefing the jury on the law that applies to the case and providing guidance on what the jury can and can’t consider in determining the guilt or innocence of the previous Republican president.
The importance of those instructions was demonstrated last week in a heated debate between prosecutors and defense attorneys outside the presence of the jury as they tried to persuade Merchan of the instructions he was alleged to give.
For example, the Trump team requested an instruction informing jurors that the style of hush-money payments at issue in Trump's case usually are not inherently illegal. A prosecutor called that request “totally unreasonable.” Merchan said such an instruction would go too far and was unnecessary.
Trump's team also asked Merchan to contemplate the “extraordinary importance” of the case when issuing his instructions and to push the jury to “very specific conclusions.” Prosecutors objected to this, and Merchan agreed that it might be flawed to deviate from the usual instructions.
“If you say it's a very important case, you're asking me to change the law, and I'm not going to do that,” Merchan said.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, asked for an instruction that an individual's status as a candidate needn’t be the only motive for a payment to learn the campaign. Defense attorneys asked that jurors be instructed that a payment that will have been made even when the person had not run mustn’t be treated as a campaign contribution.
Once the jury receives the case
The deliberations will happen behind closed doors in a room specially reserved for jurors and in a deliberately opaque procedure.
Jurors can communicate with the court through notes, asking the judge for legal advice, for instance, or to have certain excerpts from witness testimony read to them. But without knowing what jurors are saying to one another, it's difficult to read an excessive amount of into the meaning of a note.
How long the jury will deliberate is uncertain, and there is no such thing as a cut-off date. The jury must consider 34 counts of falsifying business records, so that might take a while, and a verdict is probably not reached by the tip of the week.
To reach a verdict (guilty or not guilty), all twelve jurors must agree with the choice for the judge to simply accept it.
Matters change into harder if the jury cannot reach a consensus after several days of deliberation. Although defense attorneys could seek an instantaneous dismissal, Merchan will likely summon jurors and instruct them to proceed working toward a verdict and be willing to reconsider their positions without abandoning their conscience or judgment simply to agree with others.
If the jury still cannot reach a verdict after this instruction, the judge has the choice of declaring the trial hopelessly deadlocked and declaring a mistrial.
Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz, Michael R. Sisak and Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.
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