'Made no sense': Judge explains reason for 'swift denial' of Trump lawyer’s 'pointless' motion

07 February 2024

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday laid out the reason for his "swift denial" of Donald Trump attorney Alina Habba's "unusual midtrial mistrial request" in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against the former president, Politico reports.

"The motion made no sense," Kaplan wrote in his opinion, according to the report, "explaining that Habba had known for more than a year that Carroll had said that she deleted some emails making death threats against her and yet waited until trial to act surprised and request a mistrial." Kaplan emphasized, "Granting a mistrial would have been entirely pointless."

The news outlet notes, the judge's opinion was in response to Habba's argument that "a mistrial was in order because Carroll, 80, was confessing that she destroyed evidence that should have been preserved for trial. Generally, lawyers make mistrial requests out of the presence of a jury."

Kaplan also "said, neither Habba nor Carroll’s lawyers managed to elicit from Carroll exactly what she had deleted and for how long. He called their questioning 'confusing' and said the record on the subject was left 'unclear.' And he said Habba had failed to take any steps to try to recover any deleted materials through other means or to ascertain whether they were emails or social media posts."

Politico's full report is here.

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