Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin scoffed at the idea that jury nullification could play a role in Donald Trump’s New York criminal, thus thwarting a conviction of the former president.
Jury nullification happens when a jury declares a verdict of not guilty regardless of the evidence.
On Thursday, jurors in Trump’s hush money trial heard testimony from former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, who described how he participated in “catch and kill” arrangements to suppress negative stories about some politicians, including Trump. The former president has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records to cover up extramarital affairs he had before the 2016 election.
“There’s gonna be an underlying current here by the defense of jury nullification,” said criminal defense attorney Arthur Aidala on CNN “Like, ‘So what? So, what?’ Let’s just say everything the prosecutor says is true and they satisfy the elements of the crime, which is crazy crime. So what? Big deal. Everyone else is doing it.”
Toobin was in disbelief.
“You think in a case of this magnitude, a case with all this attention–”
“All you need is one,” Aidala insisted.
“But the jury is going to say, ‘Well, we think he’s guilty, but we’re going to just find him not guilty anyway’?” Toobin asked. “I mean, come on.”
“You don’t think there’s someone who could be so annoyed that guy who’s running for president of the United States is sitting there for six or eight weeks when he should be out doing something, fundraising, campaigning, or golfing with people who matter?” Aidala said. “You don’t think there’s one or two people out there like, ‘This was totally a crime that’s a BS little crime and they just did this to keep him off [the ballot]? That’s election interference.”
While it takes just one holdout juror to hang a jury for a mistrial, this is not typically what is meant by “jury nullification, which yields not guilty verdicts.
Watch above via CNN.
