Cannon seemed to invite Trump to raise the argument again at trial, where Jack Smith can’t appeal, expert says
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday rejected one of former President Donald Trump’s motions to dismiss his classified documents case.
Cannon shot down Trump’s motion arguing that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague when applied to a former president.
Cannon after a daylong hearing issued an order saying some of Trump’s arguments warrant “serious consideration” but wrote that no judge has ever found the statute unconstitutional. Cannon said that “rather than prematurely decide now,” she denied the motion so it could be “raised as appropriate in connection with jury-instruction briefing and/or other appropriate motions.”
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“The Judge’s ruling was virtually incomprehensible, even to those of us who speak ‘legal’ as our native language,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote on Substack, calling part of her ruling “deliberately dumb.”
“The good news here is temporary,” Vance wrote. “It’s what I’d call an ugly win for the government. The Judge dismissed the vagueness argument—but just for today. She did it ‘without prejudice,’ which means that Trump’s lawyers could raise the argument again later in the case. In fact, the Judge seemed to do just that in her order, essentially inviting the defense to raise the argument again at trial.”
I thought everything could be appealed. How can this not be?
In the US model of justice, the judge decides questions of law, and the jury decides questions of fact. This order appears to delegate a law question (“is it constitutional?”) to a jury during the trial. If the jury finds the defendant innocent, then double jeopardy prevents any appeal which would change that verdict. Nobody, once declared innocent, can be put on criminal trial again for the same incident.
Not everything can be appealed. Especially if something is dismissed with prejudice, that’s basically calling it officially dead.
When a trial involving a jury has resulted in a judgement of innocence it can’t be appealed under pretty much any circumstances at all. The only way to appeal from the prosecution when they didn’t win is if it’s a hung trial / mistrial or equivalent error and there wasn’t a ruling of innocence.
(under US law, plenty of other countries have some ability to appeal if they believe there was some serious error or new evidence has been found)