copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): Before their deliberations began, New York Justice Juan Merchan spent an hour instructing the jury on the laws governing the charges against the former president. Those instructions, largely adapted from dry statutory language, provide jurors with a crucial roadmap for understanding the evidence and determining Mr Trump’s guilt. [...] A verdict must be unanimous [...] Last week, Mr Trump’s attorneys agreed that juror unanimity is not typically required when it comes to unlawful means.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-22): Judge Juan Merchan held a pre-charge conference on Tuesday afternoon to help attorneys determine how the instructions to jurors will look when they come back. Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to the $130,000 paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Trump has pleaded not guilty. [...] Additionally, Trump's team wanted Merchan to add to the phrase "for the purpose of influencing any election" and tell jurors that such influence would require "proof that the activity clearly and unambiguously related to President Trump's campaign." Merchan said doing so would further confuse the jury and that there would be other language in his instructions aimed at making that distinction. [...] Merchan also won't be instructing jurors about any advice of counsel argument—a defense Trump's team previously tried to argue. Trump attorney Emil Bove tried Tuesday to revive the argument, saying that the involvement of lawyers would bear on Trump's intent, but Merchan shut him down, calling him "disingenuous" for trying to raise it again and warned him not to repeat the argument.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): Merchan reminded the jury that they agreed to set aside their opinions of Trump when they were selected to serve and vowed to decide the case solely on the facts and the law. [...] He told the jurors that Trump is presumed innocent, and they "must find the defendant not guilty, unless, on the evidence presented at this trial, you conclude that the people have proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," referring to prosecutors. To do so, jurors can consider "all the evidence presented, whether by the people or by the defendant." [...] After defining the terms in the New York statute that Trump is charged with violating, Merchan told jurors they must focus on two elements of the prosecution's case when weighing Trump's guilt or innocence.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): The jury must unanimously agree on Trump's guilt of falsifying business records in the first degree (he faces 34 counts of this crime). A first-degree charge of falsification of business records requires a "predicate crime" for which the falsification was plausibly intended to cover up. The jury does not need to agree on the predicate crime for a conviction. On May 29, 2024, the jury in former U.S. President Donald Trump's trial over alleged hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels began their deliberations. Immediately after the publication of Justice Juan Merchan's instructions to the jury, numerous pundits and politicians — including Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — claimed the judge told the jury that "they don't have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one." [...] Because the jury must be unanimous on each count of the crime Trump is charged with — falsification of business records in the first degree — for a conviction on that count, the claim that the jury was instructed that they need not unanimously convict Trump, or that they could propose their own crime to convict him of, is "False."
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-31): The claim: The jury in Trump's hush money trial did not need a unanimous verdict to convict [...] The claim appears to stem from misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the fact that the jurors did not have to agree on what specific unlawful acts Trump committed to cover up what prosecutors called election interference. The jury instructions also noted the jury "need not be unanimous on whether the defendant committed the crime personally, or by acting in concert with another, or both." [...] - Adam Shlahet, May 30, phone interview with USA TODAY - Judge Juan Merchan, May 29, Jury instructions - New York Senate Open Legislation, published Sept. 22, 2014, Section 17-152 - New York State Unified Court System, updated May 8, Criminal Jury Instructions - USA TODAY, May 30, Judge Merchan's instructions to the Trump jury have angered the MAGA crowd. Here's why
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): Judge Juan Merchan delivered his instructions to jurors before they began deliberations in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial. [...] • The jury must be unanimous if they find Trump guilty on each count – on whether he committed the crime personally, acted in concert with others or both; [...] He also walked the jury through what they must find in the different counts levelled against Trump. Merchan explained what tax law violations were and said it was unlawful for a person to willfully produce a tax statement or document that’s false.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-06-07): Fact Check: Judge Merchan did not tell jury unanimous verdict wasn’t needed to convict Trump [...] David Alan Sklansky, co-director of Stanford Criminal Justice Center, told Reuters that it is not uncommon in criminal cases for judges to not require unanimity on the details of how a charged crime was committed. But, "It is wrong to say that the judge told the jury they don’t need unanimity to convict. He told them that in order to convict Trump of a crime, they need to agree unanimously that he is guilty of that offense," Sklansky said in an email. [...] Back to the Top © Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305-8610 | https://law.stanford.edu/press/fact-check-judge-merchan-did-not-tell-jury-unanimous-verdict-wasnt-needed-to-convict-trump/
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): After more than five weeks, countless hours of testimony and a mountain of documents, a New York judge instructed a jury to make a historic decision: whether Donald Trump is guilty or not guilty of a crime. On Wednesday, a day after both sides made their final pitches to jurors, Justice Juan Merchan delivered over an hour of deliberation instructions, going over each of the charges and detailing the elements of the alleged crime. [...] He told the jury that prosecutors do not need to prove these secondary crimes, nor do jurors need to be in agreement on which specific one Mr Trump committed. They must reach a unanimous verdict on each of the 34 counts, however.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): CLAIM: New York Judge Juan M. Merchan told the jury in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial that they don’t need a unanimous verdict to convict Trump. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Merchan said that to convict Trump the jury will have to find unanimously, on each of 34 felony counts, that he falsified business records and that he did so with the intent of concealing another crime — in this case, violating a state election law during his 2016 campaign. The judge said jurors could consider three different ways the law may have been broken and that they don’t have to be unanimous on this decision. [...] An X post reads: "Judge Merchan has told the jury that they do NOT NEED unanimity to convict. They do not have to all agree on what occurred. 4 can agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He will treat 4-4-4 as a UNANIMOUS verdict."
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-14): For criminal trials in New York State, the jury must unanimously agree on the verdict. This means that one lone juror can serve as a holdout, forcing what is called a hung jury. If 11 of Trump’s jurors agree on a conviction and 1 disagrees, for example, the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, would likely suggest that they continue to deliberate and try to come to a decision. If the jurors still can’t reach a consensus, Merchan would need to eventually call a mistrial, which is when a trial is terminated before a verdict is handed down. Importantly, a mistrial is not the same as an acquittal of the charges, so a hung jury is not necessarily a win for the former president. It would be up to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to decide whether to retry the case. [...] If the jurors unanimously decide that the prosecution has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, they can acquit Trump of all charges. In that case, the former president could not be retried for those offenses, as that would violate the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause prohibiting someone from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): WASHINGTON—Today in the New York City criminal trial against President Donald J. Trump, New York Judge Juan Merchan instructed to jurors that they do not need to have unanimity to convict the president. This means the jurors can disagree on what crime the president committed, and he would still view their choices as unanimous. This unprecedented move defies hundreds of years of legal precedent. [...] "Judge Merchan’s instructions to the jury violate former President Trump’s right to due process and have made it far more likely that the jury will convict him. "Judges are supposed to remain neutral, but throughout this entire trial, he has been acting like a member of the prosecution team. While the judge instructed the jury that it must unanimously conclude that Trump caused a false entry to be made on the books of the Trump Organization for the purpose of concealing another crime, he told the jury that they do not have to be unanimous as to what that other crime might be.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-06-06): In U.S. criminal law, a jury needs to unanimously find a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But, one expert argues the judge's jury instructions were not clear and could be grounds for appeal. "Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were," Judge Juan Merchan told the jury. [...] "They were told that they have to be unanimous as to this underlying crime of promoting or preventing an election through unlawful means. What they don't have to be unanimous on is what those unlawful means were -- and that is not an element of the statute itself," Bader said.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-06-04): No, said the judge, the jury could consider violations of tax law or a violation of federal campaign finance law or of some other unnamed law for listing as a legal expense—instead of as a campaign expense—a settlement payment made to an individual who was represented by counsel in a perfectly legitimate, and perfectly legal, transaction. But no need for a unanimous decision on that issue. [...] The judge acted like a member of the prosecution team throughout this case, a case so lacking in merit that the prior district attorney—the one who preceded the Soros-supported rogue prosecutor Alvin Bragg—refused to file it. Judge Juan Merchan consistently ruled against Trump and allowed the prosecution to essentially do whatever it wanted, including admitting evidence and allowing testimony to matters that were completely irrelevant to the actual charges and whose only purpose was to confuse the jury and blacken the character of the defendant. [...] Moreover, Judge Merchan should never have presided over this case in the first place, just like this prosecution should never have been brought in the first place. Merchan should have recused himself from handling it from the very beginning. In addition to the fact that he donated money to the Biden campaign as well as to a group called "Stop Republicans," his daughter is a Democratic political consultant who worked for the Biden-Harris campaign and whose clients have been raising money off of this kangaroo court trial.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): At first glance, it might appear that the former president doesn’t understand one of the basic tenets of the legal system: that guilty verdicts in criminal cases have to be unanimous. [...] The jury must be unanimous when it comes to determining whether Trump is guilty or not guilty of each specific falsifying business records count, and whether he did so in an effort to unlawfully impact an election, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said. He added, however, that the panel did not have to be unanimous about which of those three types of crimes could serve as the underlying violation that brings the state election charge into play. [...] "Although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were," Merchan told the jury Wednesday morning.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): "Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict," Roberts wrote. "4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He said he would treat 4-4-4 as a unanimous verdict." In fact, all 12 jurors had to agree to find Trump guilty to convict him of the felonies with which he was charged: 34 counts of falsifying business records. The judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, repeatedly made this clear, saying in his instructions to the jury: "Each count you consider, whether guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous." [...] Merchan then said that while the jury would have to "conclude unanimously" that Trump had violated Section 17-152 to find Trump guilty, they did not have to be unanimous about the "unlawful means" that were used.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): Former President Donald Trump and some of his supporters are complaining that the judge in his hush money criminal trial isn't requiring a unanimous verdict from the jury – but that's not quite right. [...] Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio posted on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday that Trump's jury doesn't need to "unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one." [...] What Trump's judge told jurors
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): Claim: The jury doesn’t need to be unanimous "Judge in Trump case in NYC just told jury they don’t have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one." — Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Wednesday New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan "is not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me" — Trump on Wednesday [...] As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump and Devlin Barrett noted, Merchan didn’t say the jury doesn’t need to be unanimous on which crimes Trump committed. The thing they needn’t be unanimous on is something different: the unlawful means Trump used to affect the 2016 election.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): That clarity didn’t stop Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., from jumping on X to completely distort Merchan’s charge to the jurors. He claimed that Merchan "told the jury they don’t have to unanimously agree on which crime was committed as long as they all at least pick one," and he compared the proceedings to "the kind of sham trial used against political opponents of the regime in the old Soviet Union." George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a favorite legal commentator in Trump’s world, also wrote on X that the jurors were told they "can disagree on what the crime was" among three options, adding that "this means that they could split 4-4-4 and he will still treat them as unanimous." [...] Yes, this is a more complicated case, legally speaking, than some of the others Trump faces. (I had to ask my colleague Jordan Rubin to triple-check that I was explaining the instructions correctly.) But it doesn’t excuse Rubio’s faux outrage or Trump’s false claim that the judge is "not requiring a unanimous decision on the fake charges against me." Turley is a law professor, Rubio has a law degree, and both (at least in theory) know how to parse the law. Likewise, Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors both had chances to pitch their own versions of jury instructions to Merchan. They also got notice last week of the orders Merchan would read out, giving them plenty of time to brief their clients.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-31): Social media posts echoed by former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that New York Judge Juan M. Merchan told the jury in his hush money trial that they didn’t need a unanimous verdict to convict Trump. [...] "How is this even a fair trial?" reads one Instagram post that had received more than 13,500 likes as of Thursday. "The judge just announced that the jury does not even have to be unanimous in their judgment to convict President Trump! This entire process was rigged from the start." An X post reads: "Judge Merchan has told the jury that they do NOT NEED unanimity to convict. They do not have to all agree on what occurred. 4 can agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He will treat 4-4-4 as a UNANIMOUS verdict."
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-21): To find Trump guilty of felony-level falsification of business documents, the jury must unanimously find that Trump falsified the documents in order to commit or conceal a separate crime. But the jurors do not all have to agree on what that separate crime was, Justice Juan Merchan ruled. Trump’s defense argued that, to issue a felony-level conviction, all jurors should be required to agree on the "predicate" crime. Prosecutors initially laid out four possible predicate crimes, one of which the judge ruled out before trial. The remaining possibilities are a tax crime and violations of state or federal election law. Defense lawyer Emil Bove argued that jurors should have to agree on a single predicate offense. But prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the law doesn't require that. "The importance of the case is not a basis for deviating from the standard application of the law," Colangelo said. "There’s no reason to rewrite the law for this case." Merchan agreed with the prosecution and said he won't impose the requirement the defense requested. In other words: If some jurors believe that Trump falsified business documents solely to cover up a tax crime, while others believe that he falsified business documents solely to cover up an election crime, the jury can still convict Trump on the felony-level falsifying-documents charges, despite disagreeing on the predicate crimes. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated how many potential predicate crimes the prosecution initially proposed.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-31): Several rightwing pundits, including a Fox News anchor, have incorrectly reported that Merchan told jurors they did not need to be unanimous in finding Trump guilty in order to convict him, NBC News reported. "Judge Merchan just told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict," Fox News anchor John Roberts posted to X on Wednesday. "4 could agree on one crime, 4 on a different one, and the other 4 on another. He said he would treat 4-4-4 as a unanimous verdict." [...] In a Thursday interview, Roberts sought to clarify his comments and said that he never meant to suggest that jurors were told they did not need to unanimously convict Trump, the New York Times reported.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-30): On Thursday, 12 New York jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels to influence the 2016 contest. [...] As the verdicts were read, Trump remained silent and still. But the former president spoke to reporters outside the courtroom, calling the trial a "rigged, disgraceful trial" and saying that the "real verdict" will be rendered on Election Day. [...] New York Judge Juan Merchan set sentencing for July 11 — just four days before the start of the Republican National Convention. Trump faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison, but as a first-time, white-collar offender, no prison time is necessary, and he could receive probation instead.
Claim: Judge Juan Merchan told New York jurors the verdict in Donald Trump’s trial does not need to be unanimous. (Social media, 2024-05-29)
Evidence (2024-05-29): April 19: A panel of 12 jurors and six alternates was selected. [...] April 23: Judge Juan Merchan held a Sandoval hearing for Trump’s alleged gag order violations, but reserved his decision. Pecker continued his testimony. [...] April 30: Farro’s testimony concluded. Prosecutors then called Dr. Robert Browning, the executive director of C-SPAN archives, and Philip Thompson who works for a court reporting company. Then, Keith Davidson, the former attorney for Daniels and McDougal, took the stand. Also, Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for violating a gag order.