Will Trump appeal based on the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of effective, competent counsel?
By Curt_Anderson January 19, 2024 1:26 pm Category: Law (0.0 from 0 votes)
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E. Jean Carroll judge bench-slaps Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, 14 times over basic lawyering in a single day of testimony. Here are some of my favorite Habba faux pas.
"Elaine's is a very popular restaurant, isn't it," Habba asked Carroll of the celebrity-packed Upper East Side bar where she'd been a regular. "It's not only popular, it's incredibly hard to get into, correct?" Habba asked.
"Ms. Habba," the judge interrupted. "It hasn't existed for years, if I'm not mistaken." Elaine's closed in 2011.
"Correct," Habba answered. "We're talking about the 1990s and '80s." But the judge reminded Habba she'd been speaking about Elaine's in the present tense, including by asking about it being hard to get into.
"That may be on account of it being closed," the judge deadpanned.
"Do you recall this tweet dated June 21, 2019," Habba asked Carroll, saying to her staffers: "Can we please pull it up?"
"It states, 'You're a pathetic, ugly old hag,'" Habba began, reading from the tweet, which was issued soon after the publication of the New York magazine story in which Carroll first publicly accused Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department-store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Habba was trying to show that the tweet's timing proved Carroll was being harassed by Trump supporters hours before Trump himself attacked her as a liar.
"Your Honor," Carroll's lawyer interrupted. "It's not in evidence."
"Let's take a break right here," the judge said, his voice angry. "What exhibit is this, Ms. Habba?"
But Habba was unable to give him an exhibit number, as, indeed, the tweet was not in evidence.
"I'm trying to get it in, Your Honor. I have to ask about it," Habba told the judge.
"Guess what?" the judge responded, now clearly angry. "You may not read from a document that's not in evidence."
"Sure," Habba responded, sounding angry herself.
The judge called a break, "during which," he told Habba, "you should refresh your memory about how it is you get a document into evidence."
After the break, Habba was reprimanded by the judge for referring to the contents of a document not yet in evidence while questioning Carroll about the same tweet.
"I'm sorry," the judge interrupted Habba. "We're just not going to go into the contents of the documents."
"I'm not," Habba protested.
"Well, you just did," the judge noted. "Your last two questions were precisely that. Yes indeed."
The judge then walked Habba through the proper way to question Carroll about the tweet.
"I recommend that you show it to her and ask her if she recognizes it. And if she does, then you ask her what it is, and she will tell you what kind of document it is, and we'll go from there."
"Fine, Your Honor," Habba answered.
But midway through this process, Habba got hung up again.
"It should be pre-marked" with an exhibit number, the judge scolded of the tweet. "Why don't you do it in the normal way, get it ready overnight, and do it appropriately?"
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Comments on "Will Trump appeal based on the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of effective, competent counsel?":
E. Jean Carroll judge bench-slaps Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, 14 times over basic lawyering in a single day of testimony. Here are some of my favorite Habba faux pas.
