The inconsistent philosophy in today's law system.

There have been a litany of legal outcomes and trials that have been publicized by US sources. And one thing has been made clear due to the nature of the litigation and the people involved: Law has lost her way. She no longer has a consistent tree of knowledge she can lean on for guidance.

What happened? Well, it's what happens when you argue both ways. Something that you'd want applicable in a certain circumstance, isn't exactly applicable to different circumstances. And that's fine for us as individuals, but it's beyond devastating for the organization of law.

The 83 million surcharge against Donald Trump(let's call it what it is) is appalling for several reasons, but the biggest one being: It does not square up with the law. The excuse that because the litigant wrote a book, that makes her a public figure is beyond absurd. If we literally took this at face value, then my posts here are public and therefore I am a public figure.

All I'd have to do is announce my IRL name, and have one of you lovely PF colleagues insult me.By pronouncing the litigant as a 'public figure', we have undermined the meaning of 'public figure' to essentially mean anyone who can be positively identified by a person or persons.

But further, even if so, public figures are not immune to criticism. https://protectdemocracy.org/work/the-actual-malice-standard-explained/

If the litigant is a public figure, in which these four rules apply then the defendant could not possibly have committed defamation against the litigant. The defendant's opinion was clearly stated, and whether true or untrue is irrelevant. The fact is, it is an opinion held by the defendant.

It would seem, to make this flimsy decision, NY relied on rule #4. But even here, no one could actually pinpoint an actual harm brought to the litigant. Instead, people suppose the 'idea' of brought harm(to the absurd tune of millions of dollars) via the posts on Truth Social, and Trump's media presence(not to be outdone, Prosecutor Smith has advanced the same theory in the Washington DC case.)

But Prosecutor Smith and the Litigant have two very different realities within the system. The prosecutor can plausibly argue(as he has) that Trump's remarks and media presence could produce bias and taint the legal proceedings. Do I think he's taken it too far? At times, but he has a solid foundation.

The litigant is not a lawyer and has no particular importance. So the idea that the defendant's remarks, in of themselves cause distress to the litigant or harm, is hard to see in this case. Besides, whatever happened to 'just ignore them'. Clearly, in this unprovable case both will believe what they will. That personal belief of the defendant is not a harm to the litigant. Whether spoken/yelled out loud or not.

We should not be litigating personal spats. And that's what NY basically did. It confused this tit-for-tat with an actual defamation case, when it met none of the required elements.

And we KNOW this, because of Trump losing the CNN case. It was essentially ruled that the opinion, covered in journalism could be protected. So if CNN could be protected in a Hitler comparison, there's no universe in which "liar" and "crazy" reach the level of defamation. None.

And what does this mean for us as citizens moving forward? If the laws are not narrowly applied, we won't know if we're following them or breaking them. And concurrently, that means the heavy hand of the DOJ can impose penalties on its unsuspecting citizens on a moment's notice.

 

I agree that defamation law seems to have lost its way in recent years. This isn't the inconsistency that bothers me most though. Mine is the right to maintain silent/have a trial. If you avail yourself of those rights, Judges tend to throw the book at you in sentencing because you were "not cooperative" and "didn't show remorse" i.e because you didn't confess or saying anything to cut off their need to actually do their job for them and screw yourself on appeal.

 

I agree it's appalling. Somewhere around $830 million would have been more appropriate.

 

Your argument rises or falls on the accuracy of your characterization of the award in the Carrol v Trump case. But you have a fundamental misunderstanding of why the award was just.

The law gives juries the freedom to award as they see fit, and the law gives the plaintiff the right to appeal that award, which is often trimmed by a panel who are not as emotionally involved in the case. This is how the law works, and there is nothing inconsistent about it.

The vast bulk of the award is 'punitive damages' ($65 million of the $83 million). The question was, 'how do we get Trump to stop defaming Carrol? Well, he's a billionaire so, as we have seen, $5 million didn't do the trick, he kept defaming her, so she sued him again, and this time the jury deemed that figure $83 million,. a degree of punitive in proportion to his wealth, is having it's intended effect, he stopped. Note that her lawyers argued for no where near that much, this was a jury determination, she didn't ask for it. If Trump continues, then no doubt she will sue again, or might just file for injunctive relief, whereupon if he violates an injunction, he can be incarcerated for contempt of court.

Moreover, the $83 million to someone who has $2-3 billion in assets shouldn't be an overwhelm, and, as such, to me it seems like he got off easy. i mean, compare his award to that of the billion buck judgement against Alex Jones, the Dominion case, the case against Giuliani, who is no where near as powerful as Donald is.

The objective is to get Trump to stop defaming her. You must understand, Trump has a megaphone to 75 million people, and this not just some average bubba on a street corner dissing you, this is nation wide defamation, which has brought her pain, death threats, which continues every time he tweets a mean tweet and bad mouths her at rallies, etc. Imagine if that were you, and i assure you, you would be singing a different tune.

This, to me, is justice working properly so I have no idea what your complaint is.

 

The NY court has held plenty of things, and it's what makes discussing this case particularly difficult because what the Court has held,and what is objectively known about the case are at odds with each other. We know for a fact that tragically, litigant does not have the evidence to prove their case. We also know the defendant(Trump) cannot/has not proved his innocence either. Logically, this should have canceled out and left it at that. There's no way a court could realistically resolve the case.

What created this mess is that the NY Court decided to lend credence to litigant's complaint(again, a complaint without the force of evidence behind it. Or at least, credible evidence) and thus gave the ruling accordingly. But that ruling flies in the face of the physical state of the case as we know it.

I do not care about Trump's pocket book, I care about what such a lowered standard of defamation means for us. Because we don't have 83 million dollars as an example. To me, public court cases exist to inform and at times alarm the citizenry,

 

Only because you hate Trump. Great job giving us a perfect example.

 

You like to turn your assertions, your opinions into facts here, but your wand is just not going to get that job done. New York hired its own triars of fact to weigh the evidence in the case and compare it to the quantum selected by its legislative body. Nobody consulted you about what was 'objectively known' because you were not chosen to be the triar of fact. You don't wear a robe, and you were not selected in the jury pool. Get over yourself.

 

This jury weighed her testimony, took a good look at her, the, person, took a look at the evidence, and based on a preponderance of it all, ruled that Trump was liable for defamation and sex abuse. More details on the evidence given here:
https://law.temple.edu/aer/2023/05/15/evidence-advocacy-and-carroll-v-trump/

Except for the fact that his behavior was typical of a guilty person. The whole thing about civil actions is who is the believable party. Based on a preponderance of all the evidence, they ruled in favor of Carrol.

If you had read the court documents on this case, I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. There are a ton of documents, docs entered into evidence, testimonies, etc.,
that corroborated Carrol's claims. This wasn't done in a few minutes.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65895581/carroll-v-trump/

Clearly, you are unaware of the details, context, the depth, scope, breadth of this case.

 

So you were on the jury?

 

There were no 'facts' to even try, that's the problem. This is like trying to make an omelette, without any of the ingredients necessary. They could have hired Jesus Christ, and it would be/is unacceptable. This 'case'(such as it is), never should've reached trial. But the pertinent facts to a particular case is irrelevant, if people choose to go on their own whims, as NY did in this case.

I pointed out the applicable law, and pointed out the contradictions but like you said, I wasn't in the court room and so the tragedy played out. That's not the 'win' that you think it is, it's a sad day in American jurisprudence.

 

Why do people think that's some kind of response? "Well, if you weren't on the jury that makes their inconsistent judgment okay". Lol, no. That's not what observing the matter is. And to give a citation to that, remember when people believed Trump was influencing the Manafort, Flynn, etc trials?

He was no more a participant then I am in this manner, yet Trump was accused of influencing the jury and meanwhile my lack of a presence is being used as some weird 'gotcha' to try to exclude the inconsistent rulings on this particular trial.

Stop being weird, stop using it as an excuse in the argument and if you love the judgment against the defendant so much, defend the judgment. It's not that hard.

 

I am fully aware. The evidence is not acceptable. That this particular court chose to accept it, in spite of the lacking corroboration and proof, is a hallmark on this court and particular case. We do not have to hold ourselves to the constraints of the court's 'findings', especially when those findings contradict the physical state of the case.

We know this, because that temple paper you love to cite, goes out of its way to illustrate how NY law is inferior to Pennsylvania law. If the trial were in my home state(and most states in the US, might I add.), litigant would have to actually show injury. Litigant would have to actually show some proof of the alleged sexual assault.

Here, litigant fell far short of those requirements. Instead, litigant cited as 'corroboration', her two female associates and by 'word of mouth'(and only in a bastion of law like NY LMFAO) could such a thing be elevated to the preponderance of evidence.

It's a joke. Even when you do use witnesses as primary evidence, they have to actually be a WITNESS to something. Let's draw a direct correlation: This court, by the same unacceptably flimsy standards would have convicted Brett Kavanaugh. In that case too, Ms. Ford made a random accusation, had several of her own associates testify and if the Senate were like the NY Court, that alone would be enough.

As we know, it wasn't enough because simply saying 'x did an awful thing to me' without PROOF, is not and should not be taken seriously. It does make policing easier though. No need for foresenic evidence people! We're back in the 50's, where word of mouth is now the king to sentencing people.

To hit you where it really hurts, guess who was affected by such policy in the 50's? Racial minorities. So as a progressive, do you want to go back to that time?

 

There were facts, and there were fact finders who did their jobs and ascertained that Trump sexually assaulted a woman. There were other facts and there were other fact finders who did their job and ascertained that Trump defamed the same woman. You don't like result. Well, you were not in a robe, and you were not in a jury box during either of those legal proceedings. You were not even there. You are probably not in the best position to say.

As for your 'contradictions' as you tell me 'what the law is'. I am not buying any of that either. You don't like the result.

 

HOW DO YOU KNOW?

 

If he had only listened to the judge and stopped publically attacking everyone during the trial etc. He might not have been in such a mess. He was the best evidence before the jury the prosecution could provide.

 

Very well said.

 

In a criminal case if you "plead the 5th" then there can be no inference drawn from that.

However this is a civil case, not a criminal case, and in civil cases if you "plead the fifth" an adverse inference MAY be drawn.

 

No.

The point is that if you weren't on the jury then you have no way of knowing if their judgement was "inconsistent"

 

We have the relevant stature of law. And we have common sense to determine if it was properly applied in this case. Court cases, viewed in the way that it's viewed in the Trump world takes them from judges and juries to the priests and bishops of the clergy.

 

I mean, the OP pretty much laid out the contradictions. And what you're basically getting at, is that the media coverage of the trials did not fairly or accurately cover the trial(since you and others continue to cling to this absurdity that since I didn't participate in the trial, that must mean I didn't understand it, and/or ascertain the facts as they did(even though these facts, are public knowledge.)

There's one basic question: Since this court did come up with this 'finding'(LMAO, such as it is), why not then pursue criminal charges against Donald Trump for the rape that "probably"(NY District Court, not my words) happened?

Could it be a criminal court would have a higher threshold? Could it also be that the litigant doesn't have the necessary evidence? Could it be that even this court civil finding is not enough? Why isn't it enough? Aren't we allowing a rapist to walk free?

All of these questions serve to do what you'd suspect: To make a mockery of the NY District Court's ruling. They lacked sufficient evidence to render a judgment, and they chose to render one anyway.

 

I can read, and I have a pretty basic understanding of how all ideal trains of thought go from A-TO-B. To prove X, Find Y. This is the general basis of all philosophical train of thought. In order to reach probability, we have to exclude all other alternatives. As one basic example, Trump mistaking the litigant for one of his wives, does not in of itself prove that the defendant knew the litigant on the day in question(do we even know if she's outlined a specific date, but I digress.

You would have to show evidence showing that there's no way he could mistake the two women, such as a side by side comparison. Even then, Trump's current age and cognitive factors all play a role. And that's just ONE low hanging fruit right there.

The Court did not exclude all other alternatives, although to be fair to them: Neither litigant nor defendant provided alternatives to be excluded to begin with LMAO. That's what makes this case so funny.

Take the name Donald Trump out of the picture and see if this makes sense to you: A Company(CNN) can attribute nazism to individual X and the company is legally protected. That same individual X however cannot call individual Y "liar" and "crazy"

This **** is ass backwards.

 

What you DON'T have is all of the evidence that was presented. What you DON'T have is all of the testimony that was given.

Without either of those trying to tell us that the jury was being "inconsistent" is nothing more than wishful thinking on your part. You are not making an analysis of any facts, you are letting us know what you want to be the facts.

 

Not only is it ass backwards . . . it also bears no resemblance to what actually happened. No wonder the analogy is as bad as you predicted it would be.

 

They may have been fair and accurate...they may have been completely unfair and wrong.

Even if they were fair and accurate what they were not was COMPLETE. There were no cameras in the courtroom, we have no transcript from the courtroom.

OJ was found not guilty in a criminal trial but found liable at a civil trial. Are you saying that was wrong?

 

With all of that testimony, the litigant did not pursue criminal charges against the defendant. If the testimony had any credibility at all, it would have actually gone much further than it did. But everyone is aware of the lack of physical evidence, and the lack of actual corroborating testimony(no, telling your friends what you say happened is NOT corroborating testimony. I saw a unicorn, do you believe me? God, I hope not LOL. On the other hand, if I show you an actual photo of a Unicorn(or even better a video), that is more corroborative.