Trump Judge Aileen Cannon Is A Hack... But Maybe Also A Cowardly Hack? [View all]

[Joinfortmill]

https://abovethelaw.com/2023/06/trump-judge-aileen-cannon-is-a-hack-but-maybe-also-a-cowardly-hack/

'Judge Cannon made herself a legal laughingstock earlier in this investigation by inserting herself into the fight over the search warrant that turned up all these top secret documents lounging by the Mar-a-Lago pool. Cannon lacked any jurisdiction to embark on a civil challenge as an endrun around a criminal investigation, a lesson she learned the hard way when an all-conservative panel of the Eleventh Circuit excoriated her for mucking up remedial procedure. But up until the appellate court put a stop to her nonsense, Judge Cannon seemed content to throw caution and the rule of law to the wind to give Trump’s lawyers whatever they wanted.

How bad could it get if Judge Cannon remains on this case? Well…Rule 29 is what used to be known as a directed verdict and authorizes a judge to acquit the defendant regardless of jury’s verdict. In theory, a faulty indictment or a government case long on bluster and light on law, could sway a jury to find guilt where the law can’t support it. If the judge puts off this motion until after a guilty verdict, the government can appeal to get the guilty verdict affirmed. If the judge issues this ruling before a verdict, as Professor Kerr notes, “Double jeopardy attaches and the case ends, for those wondering.”...So that’s bad.

But… would she actually do that?...while Judge Cannon is definitely cut from the bad faith cloth, when faced with a Rule 29 nuclear option, it’s hard to imagine she’d turn the key...Because she’s proven herself… a bit of a scaredy-cat. Even at the height of her shenanigans on behalf of the Trump cause, when she asserted (wrongly, it turns out) that she had authority over the Trump warrant, she still seemed to hope that the much more experienced and competent special master, Senior Judge Raymond Dearie, would handle it...We never have to know thanks to the Eleventh Circuit, but it seems likely Cannon would’ve thrown up her arms and told MAGAworld that she tried...After suffering a brutal benchslapping, normal judges exercise a lot more caution when the matter comes back around...Now… the stakes are far too high to bank on her own fear of joining history for the wrong reasons. The Department of Justice should ask her to recuse herself from the case given her prior role and, in the alternative, bump that motion up to her avowed non-fans on the Eleventh Circuit...'