Trump Judge Aileen Cannon Under Fire In Yet Another Criminal Trial

// You guys: Aileen Cannon might not be particularly good at this whole “judge” thing. And she only has the rest of her life to figure it out. You remember she burst onto the national stage in a most inglorious way, inserting herself into the fight over the search warrant for top secret documents at Mar-a-Lago. For that stunt, she received an epic benchslap from the Eleventh Circuit. But that was far from the only mistake she’s made.

Reports uncovered Cannon’s apparent unfamiliarity with some basic constitutional standards. And now a lawyer is coming forward with an “egregious” mistake by Judge Cannon.

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As reported by the Daily Beast, in a recent criminal trial, the verdict form she gave to jurors did not include the option of finding the defendant guilty or not guilty.

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“How far does somebody have to go to school to say that a verdict form is supposed to say guilty and not guilty?” asked defense lawyer Jeffrey Garland. “That would be one of the more egregious versions of jury instruction error… it’s such a rare error.”

Garland formally filed an appeal on Thursday and hopes to overturn a case that’s as black-and-white as they come—on a technicality.

“This is the judge’s deal. This is nobody else’s deal. I’m gonna tell ya, I’ve done a lot of appeals, and I’ve got a pretty good winning record. This is a great issue,” he said. “For a guy who’s on tape throwing a chair in court, it’s pretty ‘not good’ behavior. It would have been simple. You have a trial, properly instruct a jury, give them a form, and the jury’s gonna do what the jury’s gonna do.”

The language Cannon selected for the verdict form includes a series of yes or no questions but never allows the jury to find the defendant “not guilty.” That’s just not something typically done.

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“I’ve never seen anything like it. I am a law professor, and I found it cumbersome to read and follow,” said Elizabeth Taxel, who spent a decade as a DeKalb County public defender and now teaches at the University of Georgia. “It’s unclear to me why the court didn’t, out of an abundance of caution, include ‘guilty or not guilty.’”

And even where there are yes/no questions on a verdict form, they usually include a guilty/not guilty call from the jury:

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Jenny Carroll, a professor at the University of Alabama’s law school, stressed that these types of jury forms are exceedingly rare. She pointed to at least one instance where it was used successfully: in convicting Zacarias Moussaoui, the French member of al-Qaeda known as the 20th hijacker of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States. But jurors were asked those questions during the second phase of a trial, and the questions related to aggravating factors to the underlying crime.

“It’s very unusual—super-unusual—which is why you’ve probably never seen one,” Carroll said. “Even within these specific verdict forms, you nonetheless end up with an ultimate question where the jury has to check ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty.’ And that’s what you’re missing on this form.”

We’ll see if the Eleventh Circuit feels the need to benchslap Cannon, again, over this call.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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Aileen Cannon, Courts