“I am a taxpayer and citizen of the United States. Do I not have the right to a speedy trial in the Jan. 6 and classified documents cases? I would like to have answers to my questions of guilt or innocence prior to voting in November.”
— Olivia Kay Georgiady, Lebanon, Ohio
Hi Olivia,
Courts have acknowledged the public interest in speedy trials, but not to the extent that would force former President Donald Trump’s federal trials to happen before the election.
The Sixth Amendment says (among other things) that “the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”
It’s an interesting constitutional right compared to some others because the accused (i.e., the defendant) might not always be eager to exercise it. It’s harder to think of someone passing on the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment or the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, for example.
But the fact that the accused has a right to a speedy trial doesn’t mean they can delay the trial indefinitely. The Supreme Court has said that “there is a societal interest in providing a speedy trial which exists separate from, and at times in opposition to, the interests of the accused” and that the federal Speedy Trial Act “serves not only to protect defendants, but also to vindicate the public interest in the swift administration of justice.”
The government lawyers in these cases have been pressing the timing issue, so the public is represented in that respect by special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
But the public interest alone won’t force Trump’s trials to happen by November. Between the still undecided immunity appeal in the federal election interference case and U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s leisurely handling of the classified documents case, the reality is that we shouldn’t bank on either happening before votes are cast in the election that will determine whether these trials will ever happen. If Trump wins the White House again, he’d likely use his presidential power to shut down both cases.
With that said, wanting to know the trial results before the election is understandable. But I’d like to offer another way of thinking about that by considering the difference between the court of law and the court of public opinion.
In the court of law, the defendant is presumed innocent and the jury is tasked with answering the technical (yet epic) question of whether the prosecution has proved the elements of the crime(s) beyond a reasonable doubt. Even in cases that look like they’ll end in conviction, like Trump’s recent New York trial that did, one never knows until the jury speaks. Either way, there may be a public educational function to these federal trials, though neither would be televised; the only Trump criminal case that would be is the Georgia state case that’s also tied up for now. Yet, in the court of public opinion, people can draw whatever conclusions they like from the charges. He has pleaded not guilty in court, but the voting public is free to judge for themselves at the ballot box. That’s true regardless of when — or even whether — these trials take place. Relatedly, the public is free to factor in that a Trump victory in November would likely eliminate the cases themselves. So in thinking through the electoral relevance of jury verdicts that may never come, consider this hypothetical scenario: If Trump went to trial on both cases today and got acquitted, how, if at all, would that affect your vote? Have any questions or comments for me? I’d love to hear from you! Please email deadlinelegal@nbcuni.com for a chance to be featured in a future post.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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