Trump's Civil Trial Has No Jury Because 'Nobody Asked' for One, Judge Explains

TL;DR, the AG asked for a bench trial, Trump's defense team didn't respond, and so Trump gets a bench trial. It's possible that a jury trial would have been disallowed in this particular case under New York law, but the defense didn't even bother to ask.

Whelp, that's on your people, Donald. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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You know you messed up when you run through so many good lawyers that the only people who are still willing to defend you are total goofballs.

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- My understanding is, with possibly one or two short term exceptions, he hasn’t even had mediocre attorneys for years now. None of the big firms have wanted anything to do with him since before he was president.
  
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- https://nebula.tv/videos/legaleagle-why-trump-hires-terrible-lawyers-a-ranking
  
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- Trump is going to be calling public defenders. Better call Saul.
  
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“The Best People.”

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- AKA racists
  
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This is just so he can claim, later down the line, that it wasn't fair because it was just one judge and not a jury blah blah

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- Like a jury would prevent him from claiming bias... He already has ranted against juries and grand juries.
  
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How deeply satisfying

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It seems pretty obvious to me that Trump is deliberately trying to generate controversies like this to play into his whole "witch hunt" narrative.

The fact that his not having a jury is his own fault won't matter to his voters, because trump will just frame it as further evidence of his persecution. They're not going to care about the details, so when it inevitably goes against him, he can just invalidate the results to his base

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"They're not going to care about the details..."

I think you solved your own conundrum. The judicial system could placate Trump and his fans at every turn, and they'll still whine and complain through ignorance and malfeasance. It doesn't matter. In the meantime, I would much rather see justice served through thorough, accurate, and fair application of the law. And that's what is happening here, in beautiful fashion.

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- I don't see a conundrum to be solved.
  
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When you never pay your bills, you get what you pay for. Crap.

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My favorite part was when the camera panned from sad trump and stunned lawyers to the prosecution just trying not to laugh and cheer.

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I don't see how this could come as a suprise to anyone as it was common knowledge of you follow this stuff that they failed to request a jury. I think hearing it in court would be like "ok, it's official".

There's really no way out for Trump in this one, now, from what I understand.

I'm guessing his lawyers did not tell him what happened, were playing dumb, and are hoping he's too clueless to realize it's their fault he can't even hope for a lone, contrarian jury member to get him out of this.

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God, a .gif of that would go so hard as a meme template

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Is that in the article? Doesn't show up for me...

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- Below the title and above the first paragraph there is a video player that runs a 55 second clip, it's in the last 10 seconds. I'm unsure if that 10 seconds is from that moment though, really only see one person who seems elated but I could be wrong.
  
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Is there an advantage is not requesting a jury for Drumps side?

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He knows hes screwed in every case hes facing. He intends to completely shit the bed in every case since he cant win anyway, claim ineffective counsel on appeal hopefully with judges he appointed. If this doesnt work it goes to his stacked supreme court. He already had an attorney in another case say he would be ineffective counsel in advance of the court proceedings (completely unprecedented) which kinda gave up their game plan.

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- As I recently learned, you can’t appeal on the basis of ineffective counsel in a civil case. Which this one is. That rationale for appeal is for criminal cases only.
  
  So if he planned to do that here, well… it’s not going to work out so well for him.
  
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- Seems like I've already read of several cases that went against him under judges he appointed. At this point I'm not even sure if the chuckleheads in the supreme court could be swayed in his favor. Considering how certain he is that everybody loves him, it's not surprising that he thinks there's only a very small minority of people on a witchhunt to get him. His ego couldn't handle learning that millions of people would happily drop him on his ass if they saw him in the street.
  
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Nope.

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If Trump appointed the judge or can otherwise influence them yes.

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Alina Hahaha forgot to tick a box. Only the finest lawyers for trump.

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Lmao at his female lawyers face. She looks like a deer in headlights.

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Listen to Opening Arguments Podcast. They are doing a fantastic job providing insightful legal analysis. They stick to the facts and their predictions are mostly on the mark. When they aren't, they're up front about, and explain the situation. Great jokes too, like "Cheese and Crackers" to describe Chessebro and Powel's speedy trial getting tied together

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OA was great until the whole sexual harassment thing and the shit show/takeover that happened afterwards. I miss the information but absolutely refuse to support Andrew after all that. Had to unsubscribe.

Daily Beans, Cleanup on Aisle 45, and Jack are all great alternatives for getting similar information.

Scathing Atheist and Skepticrat are also good ways to stay broadly informed while listening to irreverent jokes about our fucked up situation.

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- Are you me? That is my core podcast rotation, lol. I want another lawyer driven pod that covers the Trump and all the satellite cases. I'll come back here with a recommendation when I find one.
  
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I try not to support people who claim moral high ground and treat people like sexual objects. Here's copy pasta from reddit. For external links, feel free to go to the original post.

Summary of all the Accusations/Allegations against Andrew Torrez Andrew/Thomas

Edit from 7/10/2023: I'm rewriting this thread so as to be more evergreen/an archive. Other than rephrasing some things, I've also reorganized the list (moved references to accusations with unnamed accusers to the end) and added one small additional accusation, so keep those changes in mind if you read any older comments (you may want to refer to the original post which is archived here).

In early 2023, lawyer and host of the legal podcast Opening Arguments Andrew Torrez (AT) was accused of personal misconduct from 11 people* up to 9 of which are detailed below, mostly of sexual harassment but of sexual assault in 2 instances as well.

The story broke when the outlet Religion News Service (RNS) published a story of how AT resigned from the board of the American Atheists concurrent to an ethics complaint being filed against him. The story also included some details about these accusations including Felicia Hart (1). In the following days more people came forward with accusations against him, regarding misconduct from 2017 to 2022.

Keep in mind they're not all accusations of equally problematic misconduct nor do they all have the same information/receipts given. The accusers were often candid of this when sharing. Please do not contact anyone involved nor anyone on this list.

There will be discussion of sexual misconduct beyond this point, so content warning for that:

Felicia Hart (AKA Felicia Entwhistle): This is the accuser the RNS article focused on, and her statement and screenshots of her DMs with Andrew have been pretty widely disseminated. She accuses Andrew of inappropriate messages, and violating boundaries multiple times in conversations.

Charone Frankel : the RNS article references her as a consensual partner and that Andrew wanted to continue their relationship after it ended. However she feels like the article left out a lot, giving a short statement/accusation of nonconsensual physical contact, on Facebook. (screenshot backup) Charone also has a slightly shorter statement available publicly on facebook.:

[...] My chief complaint against Andrew Torrez is that on more than one occasion, he aggressively initiated physical intimacy without my consent. When he did this, I would either say no and try to stop it, or I would let myself be coerced into going along with it.

Dell Onnerth: They worked with Felicia and others to bring the accusations to light, and is thanked/referenced to in Felicia's statement above. Dell has helpfully provided a summary of the rough timeline of events (screenshot backup), and has accused Andrew of sending them inappropriate messages:

[...] I was one of many people who received inappropriate messages from Andrew. For a long time, there have been whisper network accusations of physical assault and lots of high pressure sexual messages. I hope all the other hosts will do the right thing and cease platforming someone who has been unsafe for women and femmes because it has had a major impact on who feels comfortable in this movement.

Kaylie Woomer: Based on this twitter thread she also went to the PIAT crew (Puzzle in a Thunderstorm, a podcast network with which OA was associated) with unspecified concerns about Andrew. According to Dell's timeline above, it was with allegations of harassing messages. I'm unaware of her account commenting with specifics.

Thomas Smith, former cohost of Opening Arguments until AT seized the podcast from him: he has accused Andrew of inappropriately touching him when they were drinking.

An unnamed Accuser has accused Andrew Torrez of inappropriate messages sent to them in 2020 and 2021. (Screenshot Backup) Note: initially this accuser posted this on social media with their real name and DM screenshots but shortly thereafter it was unavailable, and then this anonymized statement was provided. I won't be sharing their name/the DM screenshots but I did see the original post and do have a record of it.

Unnamed person who accuses Andrew of nonconsensual physical contact them in 2017. Their accusation is a key part of the story of the accusations being brought forward. They are apparently too worried of retribution to come forward, but did confide in other people and also told peers of Andrew (like some hosts of PIAT). This seems to be the earliest relevant misconduct in the timeline. Dell has referenced them several times in their statements (see here, also included above), as has Ari Stillman (screenshot backup) (Ari is a former admin for PIAT on Facebook)

Another woman shared creepy texts with Andrew Torrez (on Facebook, so originally a named accusation) on a post authored by Dell Onnerth. Dell later deleted this post, which also made the replies unavailable. Out of an abundance of caution I'm not sharing this one either. But like with 6 I did see the original post and do have a record of it.

In reply to a statement Teresa Gomez published on this (r/OpenArgs) subreddit (Teresa was formerly an admin of the OA Facebook group and ran the previous live shows), a user commented in reply saying that AT has sent them things that were "disrespectful and wrong". As this is anonymized/details are not known, this may be a redundant entry.

Collectively these are nine accusations. On the google drive, Dell Onnerth mentions there are eleven accusations known of to them. So there are at least two more out there that I either missed or are private.

For the sake of completion, I'm going to include AT's two attempted apologies for his actions. First his initial statement on the OA group, and here his second one uploaded as a statement to the OA podcast feed (done after/in response to Thomas Smith's (6) accusation in specific). In said statements he affirms sending creepy text messages, denies Thomas Smith's accusations, and does not address the more serious accusations from (2) and (7). In a later statement in court filings, AT characterizes these as profusely apologizing.

As before, if I have missed something or a link is inaccessible please let me know!
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Too bad Andrew is a creep, and after Thomas supported the allegations and added his own, Andrew hijacked the podcast and now makes it without Thomas. Since they're equal partners, Andrew shouldn't be able to make the podcast without Thomas. Thomas thinks he won't be able to much longer.

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