News Flash: Trump Demands Mistrial in Rape Case
E. Jean Carroll is winning this case. So Trump tries to remove Judge Lewis Kaplan.
E. Jean Carroll is winning her rape and defamation case against Donald Trump— despite the badgering and bullying by Joe Tacopina in cross-examination last Thursday. That brought a succession of rebukes by Judge Lewis Kaplan, capped off by the abrupt ending of the session when Kaplan dismissed the jury while Tacopina was still talking. Kaplan also warned Tacopina to reign in both Trump and son Eric, who took to the Internet to defame Carroll further, opening themselves to criminal charges of jury-tampering.
Trump’s response this morning came in a letter from Joe Tacopina asking for a mistrial. CBSNews writes:
In a letter to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, Trump's attorney Joe Tacopina asked that the judge dismiss the lawsuit, or as an alternative, “correct the record for each and every instance in which the Court has mischaracterized the facts of this case to the Jury” and “allow the Defendant's counsel to have greater latitude to cross-examine Plaintiff and her witnesses.”
So, in response to the fact that Kaplan sustained multiple objections by Carroll’s lawyers to Tacopina’s heavy-handed treatment of Carroll as a witness on the stand, Trump has countered with what is essentially an attempt to remove the judge from the case. Kaplan has a reputation for being unimpressed by the wealth and status of both plaintiffs and defendants.
Trump’s demands in a nutshell are:
That Kaplan declare a mistrial based on his own behavior in the case. This would delay the trial for months, giving Trump a chance to reset and correct the mistakes Tacopina has made in what The Daily Beast’s Michael Epner noted “may have been the most tone-deaf cross-examination in a rape trial since To Kill a Mockingbird.” There would be a new jury—one that hasn’t seen Tacopina’s courtroom bullying and hasn’t heard the judge’s admonishments of Trump and his son.
As an alternative, Kaplan would have to review “each and every instance” in which he has sustained an objection—which Trump and Tacopina mischaracterize as Kaplan mischaracterizing the “facts of the case to the Jury.”
Trump and Tacopina are also essentially demanding that Tacopina be given free rein to be as bullying and badgering of Carroll and her witnesses as he likes.
Trump and Tacopina want at least one of Carroll’s upcoming corroborative witnesses barred from testifying. Carroll has four witnesses coming up: two are women in whom she confided at the time she says Trump raped her, and both will corroborate her current account as being just what she said in the first days after the assault. Two others are women who say Trump sexually assaulted them also. Trump and Tacopina want at least one of them barred from speaking before the jury.
Trump and Tacopina’s latest move almost certainly will cause a delay as Kaplan decides how to respond to this extraordinary request. It clearly means that Trump and Tacopina know they can’t win this case in this court with this jury—even with so much of the case left to hear. Their only hope is a mistrial, or, alternatively, to try desperately to set up a possible win on appeal by having the conviction thrown out based alleged misconduct by the judge.
Either way, Trump and Tacopina mean to punish this judge—and provide a warning to judges of upcoming cases—because he didn’t make calls the way they wanted them made.
This morning most pundits believe Kaplan will refuse the request for a mistrial. If he does, an appeal of Trump’s likely conviction in this case may, at least in part, hinge on this request.
Developing.