That's pretty devastating for the prosecution. But I feel pretty strongly that judges should not be questioning witnesses. It's just not their role. And jurors tend to defer to judges. Most times, judges do it to cover for prosecution mistakes and it hurts the defense, especially during a strong cross of a government witness. No one really complains when this happens... the complaints only seem to crop up when the prosecution is getting hurt. Either way, though, judges should let the lawyers do the questioning.Just before the jury left for the day, Rick Gates echoed other prosecution witnesses in saying Paul Manafort kept a close eye on his financial affairs.“Mr. Manafort in my opinion kept fairly frequent updates,” Gates said, after a discussion of movement between their consulting firm’s offshore accounts. “Mr. Manafort was very good at knowing where the money was and where it was going.”Judge Ellis, as he has repeatedly, interjected.“He didn’t know about the money you were stealing,” Ellis said, “so he didn’t do it that closely.”The comment by the judge goes to a question at the heart of the trial — how much fraud could possibly have gone on under Manafort’s nose without his knowledge.Downing also challenged Gates on his acceptance of responsibility, pointing out that he has not repaid the money he stole from Manafort.“I spent it over the years,” Gates said.
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Wednesday, August 08, 2018
Should judges ask questions of witnesses?
We're back on the Manafort trial. Lead snitch Rick Gates is on the stand and is getting hammered for his lies. Even the judge took part. From the Washington Post:
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I guess it's not bad for a judge to ask question although that's not what we are used to 'coz its the lawyer's role.
I've seen judges completely take over. Which is okay if its a bench trial or evidentiary hearing, but a jury trial...? Yikes.
Its a tough one. On the the one hand, we're supposed to have an adversarial system and the adversaries should fight it out. On the other hand, if there is an obvious issue of fact, and one of the adversaries is blowing it, doesn't the interest of justice outweigh our interest in preserving the adversarial system?
The adversarial system is not the goal, after all, the goal is justice. And we already put all sorts of breaks on the adversarial system. Why can't the judge step in here and there to ferret out the truth of the matter?
That wasn't a real question. It was a comment on the evidence, which should never happen.
It looks like this Judge is from the old-school English common law Judge style you still sometimes see on the Federal Bench around the country. Let's hope he doesn't take control of the Jury Instructions by "marshaling the evidence."
This judge wasn't asking questions, but was trying to influence the case's outcome by commenting on the evidence and intimidating the lawyers.
Impeach
So many judges here put their finger on the scale for the government. Helping them in every imaginable way. It's disgusting.
Yesterday the judge rebuked the prosecutors in front of the jury for having their expert in the courtroom. When the prosecutors told the judge he specifically allowed for this earlier in the proceedings, he said "I don't care wha the transcript says." What a circus.
I agree that this judge was commenting on the evidence in front of the jury. He just disguised it as a question.
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