The thing to remember about the Trump investigation in Manhattan is that while it's great news Vance can move forward, the SCOTUS decision doesn't accelerate investigative processes themselves. We still don't know how quickly Vance can process or act on any documents he receives.
What this means is that anyone telling you that today's decision regarding the Manhattan case ensures we'll hear about excerpts from Trump records pre-election is sensationalizing today's SCOTUS decision.
This is a victory for rule of law; the political implications are unclear.
This is a victory for rule of law; the political implications are unclear.
Pelosi gave a very responsible statement today that all attorneys—myself included—can get behind: the most important thing is that rule of law be vindicated.
A distant secondary consideration is whether there will be political justice on these matters for a bad actor like Trump.
A distant secondary consideration is whether there will be political justice on these matters for a bad actor like Trump.
But I'll say something else that you are more likely to hear from a former public defender than from a former federal prosecutor: the wheels of justice move slower in cases with rich and powerful defendants than they would ever move in any case involving an average U.S. citizen.
Were the Trump investigation in Manhattan a violent crime involving an indigent defendant and a public defender, a judge would expect the case to move along quickly to disposition. Judges subconsciously expect and believe cases with rich/powerful defendants should take more time.
So what Trump has in his corner as to the political implications of today's SCOTUS decision on Vance's case is the perpetual question of time in the CJS: both prosecutors and the court will move slower on this case than any other case in their caseload. That is nearly guaranteed.
I know some readers prefer pre-prejudiced legal analysis, which presumes on the front end that treating rich/powerful defendants differently is just how it is and needn't be part of any analysis or synthesis. No public defender will play ball with that sort of systemic injustice.
BTW—and I mean this earnestly—this thread isn't directed at any particular person, whether an analyst or a former federal prosecutor. I really am making a broader point that needs to be made about the role of wealth and power in the speed with which any given case is disposed of.
There's great value in getting legal analyses from lawyers with all sorts of different backgrounds, and one benefit public defenders offer—against other self-admitted blindspots or incapacities—is we see how average Americans are treated and demand all people be treated the same.
By comparison, those in SDNY's upper echelons—or federal prosecutors who primarily deal with complex criminal litigation (white-collar or otherwise) involving high-powered defendants—see their expectations for "how the system works" get skewed dramatically and may not realize it.
Put simply, "how the system works" is literally and definitionally "how it works for the average American." How it works in the cases you personally have experience working on isn't "how it works" if you regularly are prosecuting rich or high-powered defendants in federal courts.
Because journalism generally significantly privileges the perspective of former federal prosecutors over state public defenders, all of America has been educated in "how the system works" in a way that's entirely fantastical and doesn't reflect daily reality for 99% of Americans.
So I'm always amused when someone says "I'm discerning—I'll wait to hear what ex-federal prosecutors say about it." That's like saying you'll wait to learn how a political process should work until you hear from someone who knows how it *does* work 95% of the time—in 1% of cases.
Until Americans regularly hear about how things work in the criminal justice system for the average American, they won't understand how messed up the justice system is, how differently it treats the rich/powerful, and how much change is needed to preserve equal justice under law.
The solution: listen to ex–federal prosecutors when they tell you how something works for rich or powerful defendants like Trump, then switch over immediately to state public defenders telling you how utterly and totally f***ed up that is and how much it needs to be changed ASAP.
