‘Supreme Court must intervene’: Briefing claims verdict against Trump tainted by biased evidence rulings
The megamillion dollar judgment obtained in a federal court by E. Jean Carroll against President Trump, over an alleged sexual encounter three decades ago, was tainted because jurors never heard the full evidence, according to a new filing with the U.S. Supreme Court.
For example, jurors never were told that the dress that Carroll repeatedly claimed was physical evidence of her encounter with Trump contained no DNA from the president.
In fact, the district court barred such discussion by claiming “it would be unfairly prejudicial for jurors to infer that the absence of DNA meant Trump’s DNA was not on the dress.”
The amicus brief urging a new review from America First Legal calls that ruling backward. The report explained, “According to AFL, the inference was not only reasonable but highly probative in a case that otherwise turned on decades-old allegations with no physical evidence or contemporaneous corroboration.”
AFL counsel Emily Percival said, “Federal courts must apply the rules of evidence the same way in every case. What happened here was the opposite: unreliable allegations were admitted, critical rebuttal evidence was excluded, and the result was a verdict divorced not only from the standards that protect every litigant, but also reality itself.”
According to the Washington Examiner, the briefing argues that the civil judgments must be vacated, based on Carroll’s refusal to pursue or permit DNA testing at trial, results “that could have answered questions about what really happened decades ago.”
The AFL filing at the high court asks for a review of the 2nd Circuit’s decision upholding verdicts ordering Trump to pay $88 million to Carroll, a former columnist.
Unless there is such a review, the public confidence in the judiciary will fail, AFL officials said, “Without equal application of the law, in both form and substance, the American justice system unravels. The Supreme Court must intervene to preserve the integrity of our legal process and prevent future abuse.”
The verdict under the direction of Judge Lewis Kaplan, who was with Paul, Weiss before moving to the bench, followed Carroll’s many claims in public that the dress contained Trump’s DNA. But the brief said it didn’t.
“Despite that result, Carroll never moved to compel Trump to submit a DNA sample after the case entered its pretrial stages in early 2023, even though she had sought his DNA sample from 2020 to 2023. At that time, Trump’s lawyers repeatedly rejected her requests, arguing she had ‘not demonstrated a reasonable basis for such an intrusive request,'” the report said.
Then Trump offered to provide DNA, and Carroll refused, raising questions about her credibility.
AFL President Gene Hamilton said it simply was a case of lawfare.
“If the rules don’t apply equally to everyone, then they don’t protect anyone,” Hamilton said.
The filing also charges that the leftist state of New York created a law allowing for “survivors” to sue for alleged attacks from decades earlier specifically to allow Carroll’s lawsuit.
Further, the trial court allowed “prejudicial” statements that amounted to no more than “uncorroborated accusations” against Trump to be allowed in court.
Carroll is opposing any further review of the case and its lack of evidence.
The Paul, Weiss legal team was in the news after Trump was re-elected, and Trump withdrew an executive order targeting the firm’s contracts and employee security clearances “in exchange for a series of commitments from the firm, including dedicating $40 million of free legal services to ‘mutually agreed projects.'”
Paul, Weiss agreed to the terms of Trump’s statement.
Trump’s order had cited the legal team’s hiring of ex-New York prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, who wrote in a letter published in the New York Times in 2022 that Trump was ‘guilty of numerous felony violations.'”
The legal team conceded to wrongdoing of Pomerantz, and acknowledged the “grave dangers” of weaponization, the White House said.