Things took an interesting turn when NBC senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett was tasked with describing the tangled web of complicated jury instructions that Judge Juan Merchan gave the jury, dozens of pages of complicated legal instructions that, as Jarrett pointed out, jurors were unable to take with them when they went to deliberate.
As background, the jury instructions totaled a whopping 53 pages. Jurors could take notes on them and Juge Merchan had to explain them to the jurors multiple times, but, because New York law requires both parties and the judge to agree on letting the jurors take the instructions with them into the deliberation room, which didn’t happen here, the jurors could not take the instructions with them.
Jarrett, speaking outside the courthouse and waving around the thick sheaf of paper that made up the jury instructions as she spoke about the jury members not being allowed to take the instructions with them, said, “I got them. These are the instructions that the jury has to follow in Donald Trump’s hush money trial before they can reach a verdict. 53 pages. This is complicated. This is lengthy stuff.”
Continuing, she noted what was and wasn’t allowed, along with why they weren’t allowed to take the instructions with them. She said, “They can write questions, they can write notes, but they don’t get these instructions. In New York, both parties have to agree and the judge has to agree. In this case, it didn’t happen.”
Watch Jarrett sound off on the jury instructions issue here:
"*" indicates required fields
Another issue with the jury instructions was what Judge Merchan told the members of the jury when describing the different ways Trump could be found guilty. He told the jury, CNN reports, “Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. In determining whether the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you may consider the following: (1) violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act otherwise known as FECA; (2) the falsification of other business records; or (3) violation of tax laws.”
Trump apparently misunderstood that, as he wrote on Truth Social, “IT IS RIDICULOUS, UNCONSTITUTIONAL, AND UNAMERICAN that the highly Conflicted, Radical Left Judge is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me brought by Soros backed D.A. Alvin Bragg. A THIRD WORLD ELECTION INTERFERENCE HOAX!”
That understanding of the jury instructions appears to have been false, though there was a large amount of misunderstanding about what Judge Merchan meant. According to CNN, he did not mean that they do not have to be unanimous as to guilt, but rather “jurors don’t have to unanimously agree on which particular “unlawful means” Trump may have used; they can find him guilty as long as they unanimously agree that Trump used some unlawful means.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video