There’s a VERDICT in Donald Trump’s criminal trial
Over the past half hour we’ve seen a confusing series of events play out. First Judge Merchan announced at around 4:15pm that he was sending the jury home for the day at 4:30pm, so they could continue their deliberations tomorrow. Then shortly after 4:30pm the news broke that the jury had reached a verdict.
So what happened? That’s still not entirely clear. Best guess is the judge saw that the day was over and the jury still hadn’t reached a verdict, and decided to send them home, only for the jury to respond to that by saying something like ‘actually, we have a verdict, we’re just working on the forms.’
In any case, the jury told the judge that it needed an additional thirty minutes to complete the verdict forms (keep in mind there are 34 felony counts here). This points to the jury coming back into court with the completed forms at perhaps 5:15pm. Then the judge will say his part, and the jury will read the verdict aloud.
Given the circumstances, it’s difficult to imagine anything other than a guilty verdict here. An acquittal would require all twelve jurors to conclude that Trump is not guilty, and that doesn’t seem realistic. And since there’s a verdict, it’s obviously not a hung jury. So we’re likely looking at a conviction. Will it be on all 34 counts? We’ll find out soon enough.
