Good morning.
In December, a NY judge tossed Manhattan DA Vance's charges against Paul Manafort on double jeopardy grounds.
An appeal of that decision being heard this morning.
I'll be covering it live for @CourthouseNews.
Background, @jruss_jruss: courthousenews.com/new-yorks-frau…
Rather, I'll be covering it virtually, live.
The public can listen in here, but a number of other appeals go first this morning before Manafort.
Watch:
The Manafort appeal beginning now.
Valerie Figueredo is arguing for Vance's office.
Judge Dianne Renwick asks right away about double jeopardy.
The video feed appears to have cut off for me.
Not just for me, apparently.
The feed crashed, and along with it, public access to this hearing. Standby.
This alternate link works:
wowza.nycourts.gov/ad1/ad1.php
Todd Blanche is up for Manafort.
The judges appear so far to be skeptical of DA Vance's appeal.
Judge Jeffrey Oing: "They’ve got enough to get an indictment, and they’re doing a pivot to get to the double jeopardy."
Todd Blanche: "At the end of the day, there are hard cases and there are easy cases, but this is not a hard case."
The panel does not appear to question that proposition that the double jeopardy argument is an easy call, and the argument goes back to Vance's counsel.
Judge Dianne Renwick asks Figueredo: So you’re saying this is a legislative issue, not one for us?
Figueredo replies that the charges the mortgage fraud allegations are very different from bank fraud.
The hearing abruptly ends without a ruling.
Context: Judge Renwick's question about the "legislative issue" went to the NY Legislature tightening double-jeopardy standards.
Background here: courthousenews.com/pardon-loophol…
A NY judge found that, even with that change, double jeopardy applied.
That's what's on appeal.
The judges ended the hearing without a ruling.
Story ahead.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.