Honestly I am surprised that Trump et al wasn't able to get to at least one juror and make the sort of threats/promises that would have resulted in no convictions.
I'm surprised that juror selection process was rigorous enough to weed out the possibility that at least one out of 12 jurors was a rested-on Trump supporter. After all, the verdict had to be unanimous
for each count - something not required in many other jurisdictions, due to the difficulty of getting a random group of 12 people to all agree on
anything.
All it would take to result in a hung jury is a single hold-out jury member who was unwilling to listen to reason from the other 11. It happens fairly often in cases that are far less politically charged than this one was.
Kudos to the jurors here, whose identities will probably end up published by somebody, after which they will be likely subjected to various forms of harassment by fanatical members of the MAGA mob.
From the start, of course, Trump wanted the venue changed for this trial, because he was fully aware that New York's population is heavily skewed towards Democrat voters. For Trump, just about anywhere else would have been preferable. No surprises, then, that one of his immediate complaints after the trial was that the judge had denied his request for a change in venue. That complaint came in the midst of a bunch of personal allegations against the judge regarding bias and such. The gag orders the judge imposed earlier on Trump making personal statements ironically did not apply to statements about the judge himself, although understandably they
did apply in respect of the judge's family members, whom Trump also criticised earlier in the trial.
It's good to see the system working as intended.
Indeed.
In addition, if, as seems likely, this outcome causes enough fence-sitter potential voters to change their decision about voting for Trump in the upcoming election, that might be enough to swing the election for Biden.
In recent polls, up to 20% or so of likely Republican voters have said that they might reconsider their vote if Trump was a convicted felon. When push comes to shove, If even one quarter of those people go through with what they said, that could also swing the election, provided that it happens in the battleground states.
It will take a little while for the case to make its way to the Supreme Court, and another further while until Trump finds enough donors to buy Alitot/Thomas's votes - but for now he's a convicted felon.
Any appeal on this likely won't be heard until after the election. IIRC, the sentencing will happen in July. This is only a Class E felony - the lowest level felony that New York has - so Trump is unlikely to go to jail for this.
There are still three other cases in the wings for Trump, none of which is likely to be heard before the election now. So, what Biden said after this result is correct: the only way to be sure that Trump doesn't get a second term is to vote to keep him out of the White House.
