Justice Merchan gets even sleazier

 Trump, of course, was never told which of the underlying crimes he supposedly committed in the courtroom, so he was not able to defend himself from them, which according to some legal observers violates the equal protection clause.

Michael Hardstark.

Justice Merchan gets even sleazier - Monica Showalter  "New York State Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg's trial of President Trump over a bookkeeping issue is getting sleazier now that Bragg's case is starting to fall apart, giving the Red Queen of the Alice In Wonderland story a run for her money.

"At issue now are his instructions to the 12-person jury as it goes into deliberations, telling them that they don't need to agree about what the supposed 'underlying' crime of Donald Trump was that would make his hush money payment to porn "star" Stormy Daniels a felony, which is the legal basis for turning the bookkeeping issue into a 34-count felony. They just need to think that Trump was thinking about commiting a crime when he signed off on the check and what that crime was can be anyone's guess.

"But no matter: Sentence first, verdict later.

"And he started this out with a doozy of bad behavior, going all Eddie Haskell on the jury to begin, as if in a bid to butter them up to do things in his biased way. Normally, juries are praised after they render their verdicts by judges.

"But Merchan is special." . . .

Evidence Shows the 'Random' Judge in the Trump Trial Has Major Conflicts of Interest (townhall.com)    . . ."One cannot help but suspect that the “random selection” at work in the assignment of Acting Justice Merchan, a Democrat Party donor, to these cases involving prominent Republicans, is in fact not random at all," she continued. "The simple answer to why Acting Justice Merchan has been assigned to these cases would seem to be that whoever made the assignment intentionally selected Acting Justice Merchan to handle them to increase the chance that Donald Trump, the Trump Organization, and Steven Bannon would ultimately be convicted."

"I request that both the Commission and the Inspector General investigate this anomaly to determine whether the required random selection process was in fact followed in the assignment of these criminal cases to Acting Justice Merchan. If Acting Justice Merchan or any other Justices of the Court are found to have violated these rules, I would hope that the Commission would subject them to the required discipline. And if any non-judicial employees of the Court are involved in such a scheme, I would hope that the Inspector General subject them to the appropriate sanction," Stefanik said. 

"Throughout the trial Merchan slapped Trump with a number of gag orders while allowing those testifying against him, including convicted felon Michael Cohen, to openly speak about the case. " . . .