The judge in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming trial over his handling of classified documents made two key errors in a June trial, one of which violated a fundamental constitutional right of the defendant and could have invalidated the proceedings, according to legal experts and a court transcript.
Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon closed jury selection for the trial of an Alabama man – accused by federal prosecutors of running a website with images of child sex abuse – to the defendant’s family and the general public, a trial transcript obtained by Reuters showed. A defendant’s right to a public trial is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.
Cannon, a 42-year-old former federal prosecutor appointed by Trump to the bench in 2020 late in his presidency, also neglected to swear in the prospective jury pool – an obligatory procedure in which people who may serve on the panel pledge to tell the truth during the selection process. This error forced Cannon to re-start jury selection before the trial ended abruptly with defendant William Spearman pleading guilty as part of an agreement with prosecutors.
Cannon’s decision to close the courtroom represents “a fundamental constitutional error,” said Stephen Smith, a professor at the Santa Clara School of Law in California. “She ignored the public trial right entirely. It’s as though she didn’t know it existed.”
In Cannon’s decision to close jury selection, the judge cited space restrictions in her small courtroom at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida…
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Orange of Specious
Article URL : https://www.reuters.com/legal/trump-documents-case-judge-made-multiple-errors-earlier-trial-2023-08-04/