Escape from New York: the judge

Editor’s note: This is the third in columnist Brent E. Zepke’s series on Donald Trump.

‘The court finds” is a familiar phrase to everybody involved in court decisions. But is it too familiar, meaning that everyone just accepts it rather than wonder if it is used to obfuscate that a “court” never has, nor ever will, make any decisions. Why?

A “court” is defined as “A tribunal presided over by a judge,” so the phrase that a “court finds” really means a “judge finds.” But do judges really “find” their holdings?

To “find” is to “discover or perceive by chance or unexpectantly.” Hopefully judges are not indicating that they “discover or perceive by chance” their holding, but rather determine them from the facts and testimony presented in their courts.

For judges to “unexpectedly” find something, they must begin with “expectations” that may indicate prejudices that may influence their rulings. For example, in my first appearance in my first case representing Hercules, federal Judge Schwartz, by asking me “Why do all Hercules employees lie?” indicated that he “expected” my witnesses to lie.

I found it difficult to begin a trial with a judge’s expectations from a case before my time that had people not involved in my case or even still employed by my client. To his credit, after many spirited times in open court and in the judge’s chambers in that, and other cases, the judge changed and even asked me to join him for lunch and help his law clerk understand how I had become an effective trial lawyer.

Expectations before trial are prohibited for both jurors and judges. However, unlike jurors, judges must recuse themselves to avoid at least the appearance of impartiality.

What “expectations” might Judge Juan Manuel Merchan have before the New York trial against Donald J. Trump even begins?

Judge Merchan’s career was in the New York City district attorney’s office and the New York state attorney general’s office, while both of them sued the Trump Organization multiple times. Previously, as a judge he presided over the Trump grand jury proceeding where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. based his case on the testimony of Michael Cohen, the disbarred lawyer who spent time in jail for perjury.

All judges in New York are supposed to be bound by the New York Code of Judicial Conduct, which is intended to establish standards for ethical conduct of judges in New York, and provides:

(A) A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

(B) A judge shall not allow family, social, political or other relationship to influence the judge’s judicial conduct or judgment.

Judges in New York are supposed to be randomly selected, which raises the question: How was this judge assigned the cases involving the Trump Organization, including the ones against former CFO Allen Weisselberg, Steve Bannon and now Donald J. Trump? Since his receiving all three cases defies randomness, do they reflect “political” relationships?

To shift gears a bit, the media keeps hammering home the number of mass shootings that have taken place this year. And they’re always Johnny on the spot if they can try and nail the shooter as a right-wing, white guy, and of course, a racist. But they shut down when it’s a trans killer or a person of color. Then the shooting takes on an altered personality.

Just how sick is that? People are still murdered, but it’s different. Suddenly this time it’s the shooter who has issues.

Then Ole Joe is led to a podium by the elbow to proclaim something needs to be done to stop it. What President Joe Biden doesn’t know, among a lot of things, he’s been the biggest coup for gun sales the country has ever had. Gun manufacturers couldn’t pay for that kind of advertising. One of the top 10 dates of gun sales was when Corn Pop Joe was sworn in, I’m choking on this, as president.

Last December, and think about this, was the 40th consecutive month where background checks to purchase a weapon were over one million! Rivaling the number of illegals crossing the border or the pounds of deadly drugs coming into the country killing far more people than guns. The total number of background checks to buy a gun for 2022 was almost 16 million. Years 2020 and 2021 were No. 1 and