Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[DarkTZeratul]

Here's where it gets really thorny and why 51% gives me pause - this is gonna get confusing so bear with me:

I believe that most accusers for sexual assault are telling the truth. I believe that if someone accuses someone else of sexual assault, it's 80, 90, maybe 95% that the accusation is true.

But now, let's create a 51% standard for civil cases. Based on my belief up above, I should find in favor of every accuser, because I believe most accusers are telling the truth. But now we've created a moral dilemma, because it's now super easy to game the system - just accuse someone and you win! This means that lots of people will start accusing, and therefore I should be less willing to believe accusers because unscrupulous people will just make accusations and rely on my belief that most accusations are true.

I'm just lost in the math and ethics here, working it out in my head.

Why do you keep trying to turn this into a math problem when it has nothing to do with math?

[Captain N]

Why do you keep trying to turn this into a math problem when it has nothing to do with math?

Seems like he's trying to justify the exact reason women don't pursue charges of sexual assault to begin with.

[Breccia]

Here's where it --.

This thread is not about the justice system in general.

This thread is about Trump, including how he put up no defense in a civil trial and is now liable for sexual assault. At no point did any juror or the judge say 51%.

Please post constructively.

[DarkTZeratul]

I'm interested in the legal question here, not really Trump. It's ok if you're not, you can ignore my posts.

Given that this thread is about Trump, specifically, you should make a new one to discuss legal questions that by your own admission aren't about Trump.

[Edge-]

Here's where it gets really thorny and why 51% gives me pause - this is gonna get confusing so bear with me:

I'm still unsure why you're so dedicated to assigning a numerical value to an abstract concept.

I believe that most accusers for sexual assault are telling the truth. I believe that if someone accuses someone else of sexual assault, it's 80, 90, maybe 95% that the accusation is true.

How do you assign those percentages? How much evidence is a testimony worth? Does the quality of the testimony matter? How much % is DNA evidence worth? How much is video evidence worth? Are these all individually evaluated? How do we assign values if so?

But now, let's create a 51% standard for civil cases. Based on my belief up above, I should find in favor of every accuser, because I believe most accusers are telling the truth. But now we've created a moral dilemma, because it's now super easy to game the system - just accuse someone and you win! This means that lots of people will start accusing, and therefore I should be less willing to believe accusers because unscrupulous people will just make accusations and rely on my belief that most accusations are true.

I mean...you'd find in favor of every accuser if you ignored all the evidence presented during the civil trial? Why are you acting like there was no evidence presented at the civil trial for a jury to evaluate or something?

That you're thinking of "gaming the system" is fucking weird as shit to me? How the fuck would that even work? If it's so easy to game why aren't we seeing this all over the place? Surely if taking someone like Trump to the cleaners for $5M was just that easy (ignoring the years the case has been in the works and the countless legal hurdles it had to clear to proceed that you completely ignore) then we'd see it all over the place for a long time now, no?

I'm just lost in the math

Because this isn't a math equation, dude.

To me something like 75%, 80% makes more sense, but again, not sure how you deal with a case where you believe 90% of accusers are telling the truth in the first place.

By evaluating their claims against the evidence they provide, and the evidence the defense provides. Seems like...super straightforward and simple of a concept to me but maybe I'm missing something?

That leads me to say that I would want something more concrete than an accusation and other people telling the jury that they heard the accuser's story too.

Then that's your subjective definition for "preponderance of evidence". Not everyone is going to come to the same conclusion based off the evidence provided.

It's almost like that's why the jury ruled in favor of Carroll on her claim of being a victim of sexual assault, and did not rule in favor of Carroll on her claim of being a victim of rape. Because the evidence presented was evaluated against both claims, with the jury finding a preponderance of evidence for one charge and not the other.

Law isn't math, dude.

[Kaleredar]

I'm interested in the legal question here, not really Trump. It's ok if you're not, you can ignore my posts.

We don't know if the jury was only "51% convinced." They could have been 100% convinced for all you know. They, beyond a reasonable doubt, concluded that Trump sexually abused this woman and then disparaged her.

The reasons they had to believe her:

The woman's testimony
The testimony of witnesses
Trump's behavior regarding her, specifically
Trump's behavior regarding women in general

The reasons they had not to believe her:
None given

So is it any real surprise they found in her favor? Turns out that having no defense isn't a good defense.

[Edge-]

Really disappointed in everyone wanting to shut down debate.

Nobody wants to "shut down debate", what a fuckin stupid strawman.

You just aren't presenting a coherent argument that makes a lick of sense and are consequently making a lot of bad arguments that tacitly defend Trump here. And are being criticized for it. If you can't handle criticism of a bad argument that's a you problem not a "shut down debate" problem.

If you go back to the Rittenhouse case, there were plenty of people arguing that the laws in Wisconsin were crap, and I don't remember anyone arguing that it was bad to criticize the justice system when looking at a specific verdict.

Rittenhouse's trial was a criminal case and completely unrelated to this thread. If you want to have a broader discussion of our legal system you can always create a thread in GenOT or here if you want a more political angle.

Whether the laws make sense seems super relevant when discussing interesting legal cases, which this certainly is.

What laws? The laws in question in the Rittenhouse trial and the Carroll trial are completely different, and even in completely different states. This smacks of "throwing shit to a wall and hoping something sticks" kind of arguing.

[gondrin]

Really disappointed in everyone wanting to shut down debate. I think it's pretty interesting to talk about whether the law makes sense when talking about specific verdicts. If you go back to the Rittenhouse case, there were plenty of people arguing that the laws in Wisconsin were crap, and I don't remember anyone arguing that it was bad to criticize the justice system when looking at a specific verdict. Whether the laws make sense seems super relevant when discussing interesting legal cases, which this certainly is.

False comparison. Rittenhouse was being charged with a felony crime by the state. In criminal trials, you have to convince the entire jury of guilt or innocence. In a civil trial, you only need to convince enough of the jury that you were right. The reason for this is that there is no loss of freedom in a civil trial. The only thing that happens is you have to pay whatever monetary damages to the person that was suing you if you lose.

Also, if Trump feels that the evidence is bunk from her, he can appeal the verdict and go in front of a panel of judges.

Thing is, the whole point of going to trial is to literally convince people just enough to prove your case. Otherwise, most people settle as you can easily lose in a trial if you do not present enough evidence or enough compelling evidence. She provided enough evidence. It was up to Trump and his lawyers to debunk it. They did no such thing.

[Edge-]

People game systems all the time. That's incredibly important to think about when designing laws, it's not weird to think about it.

Ok and? Connect the dots to your claim that they're gaming this system.

The whole, "Well something bad can happen somewhere" innuendo is pointless.

What other evidence was there besides an accusation? I didn't see anything damning in the video of Trump you posted. It's an accusation, they were together at a party or something 35 years ago, and that's it as far as I know, other than that he seems like an asshole in every video I see of him, but it's not illegal to be an asshole.

Based on your post I assume you followed absolutely nothing in the multi-year saga of this legal battle and honestly if you couldn't be bothered to do even the most basic research before coming in with your spiciest hot-takes I'm not sure why we should be spoon feeding you the information.

Discussion requires good faith on both parties, you don't appear to be coming in good faith here.

There are lots of connections between law and math. The root of both is logic and philosophy.

Ok, so what are they? Tell us about them, show us why "51%" is relevant or meaningful in this discussion as you seem to think it is.

To your questions - I don't know. I introduced math into this discussion because I googled and found "51% standard"

"51%" isn't even specifically noted in the Stanford article you linked. From, I'll note, a philosophy encyclopedia at Stanford, not a legal one and not specifically discussing American law or legal systems.

That led my mind to go down the path of: well, most accusations are true, so that means simply accusation should theoretically be enough to meet 51% standard, but uh, that would lead to some nonsense with people gaming that law, wouldn't it?

Again, here you are pretending as if evidence isn't supposed to be a factor for some weird reason that makes no sense.

But overall, do we agree that "preponderance" means "something substantially beyond a simple accusation" - because if true, then we just disagree on whether that exists.

Honestly, given that you appear to have not followed the case outside of what was recently posted here, how would you know?

[Breccia]

What other evidence was there besides an accusation?

Perhaps you should have read the thread on this topic before posting on this topic.

[Breccia]

Sounds like you are asking for the source of 51%.

None of these are about Trump's case. Please post constructively.

- - - Updated - - -

So let's talk about Tim Pool.

"Who?"

Tim Pool is a podcaster who, amongst other things, is a Trump supporter, Joe Rogan supporter, Kanye West supporter, 2020 election denier, was dragged in front of the Jan 6th committee then claimed they set him up, and other than not being exceptionally racist basically an alt-righter. His most recent YouTube videos seem to be about how Trump would end the Ukrainian invasion and how the media lies about Trump, both in the last 2 days. I didn't bother watching them, but I assume they're not ironic.

"Okay, why does he matter?"

Well, other than the Trump family proving they're fans, someone else was fan. Namely, Juror 77.

Newly unsealed court filings indicate that Trump’s attorney was making a sharply different argument behind the scenes in order to dissuade the judge from ejecting a juror who listened to podcaster Tim Pool, a far-right, pro-Trump commentator who has aligned himself with figures like Steve Bannon.

“A juror’s political affiliation is not grounds for dismissal, even in cases involving a political figure,” said Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina in a May 2 filing that was unsealed by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday. Kaplan ultimately sided with Tacopina’s argument, leaving the juror in place.

Tacopina was responding to an April 30 motion by the plaintiff, E. Jean Carroll, to disqualify the juror — identified only as “Juror No. 77.” Carroll’s legal team wanted him disqualified for “inferred bias” based on his acknowledgement that he listened to Pool’s show a few times over the last six months.

“Juror No. 77 has described Pool’s podcast as ‘independent,’ ‘middle,’ and ‘balanced.’ A juror who views Pool’s podcast in that way may subjectively believe that he has no relevant bias, but has just as certainly confirmed that he does,” an attorney for Carroll wrote in the motion. “No person capable of deciding this case fairly and impartially would seek out only Pool’s content, rely on YouTube to promote other content based on Pool’s podcast, and maintain that Pool’s commentary is indeed ‘middle’ and ‘balanced.’”

"Wow. Lucky for Carroll that the judge agreed and threw him out."

(clears throat)

"...ohhhhhhhhhh shit."

Yep. Juror 77 was not thrown out, and the jury was still unanimous. Pool is clearly not a journalist, he's also apparently not a great fan of masking or vaccines, but he's not a complete fuckwad like Carlson.

And yes, even a devoted fan of his podcast still agreed Trump sexually assaulted a woman and lied about it.

[Benggaul]

Oh boy! Glad I'm home from work and have time now to read many pages in response to a "Somewhat Concerned" person who appears clueless about the entire process and is "just asking questions guys, seriously". I'm sure this was all totally sincere and not at all a waste of everyone's time.

On a completely unrelated note does anyone know whose clown shoes these are? Found them on the way in and they're kind of obstructing the path. They appear to be designed for an aquatic mammal with a taste for fish.

In news that's on-topic, the CNN Town Hall is happening in another half hour or so, I think, so I look forward to not watching that while I wind down from work. Given that CNN is now owned by the right-wing I doubt it'll be anything but soft lobs--that Trump will still manage to miss and it won't matter anyway.

[Breccia]

I look forward to not watching that

Yeah, I'm with you there. I said earlier CNN might be able to salvage something by fact-checking him to his face, but I'm not sure enough they will to prioritize that.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Overall to me the evidence doesn't seem super strong - no physical evidence whatsoever, only a victim's testimony.

Which would not be enough in a criminal trial. This was not a criminal trial.

Couple of things you should be aware of

Trump was caught in multiple lies (including the "she's not my type"...when in the deposition he saw a photo of E. Jean Carroll from around the time of the incident and thought it was his wife.)

The access hollywood video has him basically confess to the type of behaviour that he was being accused of here. The Deposition has him doubling down on the "they let you do it"

Trump never took the stand. Juries don't like that. The only reason any decent lawyer would not put their client on the stand is if their testimony would hurt them more than it helps.

- - - Updated - - -

"More likely than not" is 51%, right? What do you think I'm missing here?

Do you think the jury looked at all the evidence, added it all up and were like "Yup, that's exactly 51%...he's liable"

They were only out of 3 hours. This was not something they had to struggle with. They looked at all the evidence and found that it did not conclusively prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Trump actually raped her...but it was still clear to them that he did sexually abuse her.

Also, the standard for the defamation part of the claim is "clear and convincing evidence"...which is in between "preponderance of the evidence" and "beyond reasonable doubt"...and she did that as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Sounds like you are asking for the source of 51%. Here it is:

https://valientemott.com/legal-termi...e-of-evidence/

https://www.justia.com/trials-litiga...dens-of-proof/

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/prep...im%20is%20true.

You can find hundreds of other examples linking the two. I didn't make it up. When I started posting my question was on the evidentiary standard, so I googled and found lots of places calling it a 51% standard.

It's a "greater than 50%" standard"... which means it is more likely to be true than false.

I'd just need more concrete evidence to get to a "preponderance" standard that seems reasonable to me (which I would consider way higher than 51%)

.

THan you really need to learn what the word means...

Preponderance: the quality or fact of being greater in number, quantity, or importance.

even in the minimum "51% standard" that you keep trying to make a thing... 51% is greater in number than 49%. We can agree on the maths right?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Yup - I can agree on 51%. But this is where it gets confusing, because as I mentioned about, there are people who would state that 51% does not satisfy the "preponderance" standard in certain cases - the "a bus hit someone, and you own 51% of buses" case.

If you own 51% of all busses is it not the most likely explanation that any bus I see belongs to you?

How does that not satisfy "preponderance"?

Again, you are arguing against the defintion of the word.

But yes, personally I would need to see more evidence than what you mentioned above to think that this verdict makes sense, regardless of what exactly 51% means. Lying in public because you're a blowhard doesn't mean you sexually assaulted someone 30 years ago. Ah well.

Then you would not be fulfilling your duty as a juror in the case. You could be held in contempt of court for that.

[Breccia]

But yes, personally I would need to see more evidence than what you mentioned above to think that this verdict makes sense

There was.

You chose not to read it.

[postman1782]

They'll just claim the courts are biased.

Oh, I have already seen it in Tiktok, people are claiming the jury was paid off. Til you tell them the jury was fucking anonymous.

- - - Updated - - -

Overall to me the evidence doesn't seem super strong - no physical evidence whatsoever, only a victim's testimony. I googled "preponderance of evidence" and found a lot of places claiming it's a 51% standard, and that set off alarm bells for me because 51% seems really low. But the more I read this article (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/e.../#MatProStaPro) the more it seems no one knows what the hell it is.

I guess a big concern of mine is that a low standard makes it easy to manipulate the system and win cases.

TRUMP LITERALLY ADMITTED HE FUCKING DID IT IN HIS VIDEO TAPED DEPOSITION. How the fuck can you say it was only the victim's testimony? Also, there were plenty of other people that she told that testified, along with other victims of his rape and abuse that testified.

Here is the whole deposition:

[Endus]

Yup - I can agree on 51%. You guys can't stop needing to clarify blindingly obvious things. But this is where it gets confusing, because as I mentioned above, there are people who would state that 51% does not satisfy the "preponderance" standard in certain cases - the "a bus hit someone, and you own 51% of buses" case. So it's not really clear what 51% means. It's just lawyer speak that doesn't really match the math, it's highly subjective.

It really doesn't. "Preponderance of the evidence" is just "in the opinion of the jury, is it more likely that the allegations are true, or not true."

"51%" is just the obvious quantifiable marker. 50.1%, even. But in reality, it's subjective, because that's how jury trials work; trying to quantify it objectively is a fool's errand and generally a demonstration of malicious intent.

[Shadowferal]

But yes, personally I would need to see more evidence than what you mentioned above to think that this verdict makes sense, regardless of what exactly 51% means. Lying in public because you're a blowhard doesn't mean you sexually assaulted someone 30 years ago. Ah well.

Good thing you're not a lawyer or a judge.
Although you might want to give that fellow Tacopina a call. Or even that Giuliani guy.

[Endus]

So, CNN is in a tough spot.

That's not a defense. They put themselves in a bad spot on purpose. No question there.

But, basically, they have five choices.

1) Cancel.

2) Do what you suggested immediately.

3) Do what you suggested eventually.

4) Lob softballs all evening.

I just turned it off. It's #4. Maybe this won't remain true for the entire show, I didn't watch the first 15 minutes or so, but while I was watching, every question offered was from a prior Trump supporter, and while the moderator's trying to hold him to task, she's letting constant falsehoods slip by because if she weren't, it would be nothing but her filling the airtime with corrections.

Which means this is just a pro-Trump propaganda puff piece, and CNN is without ethics. Fox News Lite at this point, letting this kind of bullshit fly.