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I mean, maybe there's an argument Michael Cohen could have made that his conduct was not criminal, that the statute criminalizing it was unconstitutional. I am skeptical any court is going to get into that matter separately.
But again, whatever happens/happened with Michael Cohen's legal case is completely irrelevant for Donald Trump's legal case. When Donald Trump appeals his conviction, specifically on the grounds that there was no other crime being concealed, the courts will get into that issue. There is nothing "separate" about it.
I guess I'm wondering what this looks like. Is the idea that the NY prosecutor is going to have prove Cohen guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Skeptical that's the actual standard.
No. Donald Trump says, "That's not a crime," and when they check how it is possible for the mostly uncontested facts to comprise a campaign finance crime, they will see that it is, in fact, not a crime. Like, have you ever read an appellate decision? ...have you ever read one where they do this sort of thing? Where it's like, "Yeah, this is what happened, and that is what the law says, but if we're going to read this law in any way that comports with the Constitution, it cannot possibly make this set of facts a crime." This happens regularly, even in the circuit courts. Maybe even just start with Citizens United. It has the campaign finance/first amendment angle, too. The court was definitely all, "Yeah, this is not a crime."
But Citizens United was about whether those particular defendants had committed a crime. The analogy is Cohen appealing his conviction. What's the citation for a case where some person A is appealing their conviction and a court decides some other person B has not committed a crime they pleaded guilty to?
The court doesn't have to decide anything about Person B's case. For the third time, Cohen's case has nothing to do with it. They have to decide whether the underlying facts comprise a crime, for Trump's case. Cohen's plea is literally the least persuasive authority possible for whether it is a crime. It would be slightly more persuasive if he was convicted at trial, but that's still nowhere near binding on the appeals courts. If Cohen had appealed his case on the grounds that it's a non-crime, and the appeals court in question ruled that it was, after all, a crime, that would be significantly more persuasive, but not binding unless it was the same appeals court. And of course, Trump's case could go all the way to SCOTUS, which means that unless Cohen had vigorously protested on his own that it was, indeed, a non-crime all the way to SCOTUS, himself, and then had them tell him that it was actually a crime, they can do the same damn thing they've done in many cases and just say, "Nah, dawg, that ain't a crime."
Cohen's plea has literally nothing to do with it, and no court has to decide anything about Cohen's legal situation.
Maybe I am not understanding. You say it has nothing to do with Cohen's case, but then say the appeals court has to decide whether Cohen committed a crime. That seems pretty related to Cohen's case!
The only thing related to Cohen's case that is relevant is that Cohen should not have been allowed to testify that he plead guilty, because it is blackletter law that co-defendant's convictions/pleas are inadmissible as evidence that the defendant currently on trial committed a crime, or even that the conduct was criminal. That alone, in a less controversial case, probably would be considered reversible error.
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Nope. They have to decide whether the underlying facts, which are mostly uncontested, comprise a crime. Cohen's case is not involved in any part of that sentence/process. Like, where does it go in there? It doesn't.
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But your theory of the case is that Trump conspired to his Cohen’s guilt. That wasn’t what the government argued and honestly itself is not shown by the facts.
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No, they'll consider the issue already decided by Cohen's plea, and not subject to re-litigation by Trump. The legal system is full of sneaky little gotchas like that.
I find this utterly implausible. For the record, I find it completely plausible that various courts could find some way to rule against Trump, but this one will simply not be there. Higher courts know that there are plenty (not in percentage terms) of people who are in prison for non-crimes, especially as parts of plea deals, that would be found to be non-crimes if contested appropriately. It would be one thing if Donald Trump had plead guilty to the requisite non-crime; I could absolutely see a court viewing that as settling the matter. But I cannot possibly believe that someone else pleading guilty to a non-crime settles the matter in the case in front of them. In fact, I imagine the court records are full of people appealing (some successfully) their convictions for things that are non-crimes, even though they had accomplices who plead guilty to those very same non-crimes. I challenge you to find me one example of a court simply rejecting any possibility of such an appeal based solely on a third party's plea agreement.
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