I promised to weigh in on the mounting plea deals in the Fani “Fanny” Willis Georgia state elections interference case. Is this something good? It is bad? Are lawyers starting to “flip” on Trump? Is it The End?
Answer: Sort of, no, no, and no.
Two months ago, Fulton County DA Fani Willis indicted President Trump and 18 other co-defendants (mainly conservative lawyers) of about a billion state law process crimes not requiring proof of any harm to any real person, and adding up to over 1,000 years in jail each if the defendants are convicted on all charges. It’s all related to interfering with the election, lying about election fraud, and hilariously, racketeering. This week, four defendants (so far) have signed plea deals, and social media has been a hot mess ever since debating what it all
means.
The first to sign a plea agreement was Sidney Powell, and she seems to be the trailblazer, or maybe “ringleader,” of the plea group of defendants, since the agreements are similar. Let’s talk about Sidney.
Whatever else she might be, Sidney is a highly-experienced federal criminal defense attorney. She has battled the government for clients many times, including in high-profile, politically radioactive prosecutions like Alaska Senator Ted Stevens and most recently General Michael Flynn.
Sidney even wrote a book about battling the federal criminal justice machine. She’s an expert. Sidney has forgotten more about criminal law than anyone in Fanny Willis’s office knows.
Sidney understands exactly how the process works. She knows everything that is going to happen. She knows how expensive and time-consuming it will be. She knows exactly where the DA’s weak spots are. And she struck at their weak spot.
The first thing Sidney did was demand a speedy trial. That was a bold, high-risk move that 99.9% of all criminal defendants voluntarily waive. The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution requires a speedy trial, and most state criminal procedure sets that time within what looks to modern lawyers to be impossibly-short: Georgia’s Speedy Trial Act requires a trial within 90 days from arraignment.
Sidney was one of the first defendants to voluntarily turn herself in, starting the clock on her speedy trial as soon as possible.
We don’t get to see a lot of what is happening “behind the scenes,” so I will make some confident assumptions. Sidney also probably demanded all the DA’s evidence for trial as well as all its exculpatory evidence. Based on her book and her good results in other cases, Sidney is an expert at pushing the government on evidence and poking holes in their case.
I’d bet a week’s salary that Fanny Willis was not anywhere close to ready to start producing documents when Sidney Powell ambushed her office by demanding a speedy trial. Fanny probably did not see that move coming. She probably expected that the Trump defendants would do what nearly every other criminal defendant does and waive their right to a speedy trial.
In that context, Sidney (and the other defendants following her example) began negotiating a plea deal with the DA’s office. This is very common. It included lots of phone calls, emails, and probably one or more face-to-face meetings at the DA’s office. Fanny Willis and her team have lots of incentive to negotiate plea deals with the defendants. They do not want to try nineteen different high-profile defendants. They really only want Trump. It’s way too much work for the under-qualified but highly diverse Fulton County DA’s office to try 19 VIP defendants on a grab-bag of novel theories of law.
Sidney negotiated a great deal which closed the day before jury trial selection was scheduled to start, putting enormous pressure on the DA’s office to be ready for trial. The DA’s office caved.
First of all, Sidney pleaded guilty only to six misdemeanors — instead of seven felonies that were charged. She must pay a $6,000 fine, testify honestly at trial, and complete six years of probation (one year per count). But most important, her plea was entered as “deferred adjudication,” an option for first offenders, which avoids a judgment of guilty (it gets “deferred” indefinitely), and automatically results in an expunged record when the person successfully completes probation.
So Sidney is done and out. She must still testify if the case goes to trial, but she must testify honestly, and since all the charges are bogus, she will almost certainly testify honestly that nobody, including Trump, did anything meriting a felony conviction.
The “significance” of the Powell plea is that it never should have happened at all. The deal was a slap on the wrist — an easy decision for Sidney to make — but it ripped the mask off the DA’s horrible political prosecution. The DA’s office obviously didn’t think it could prove any of the serious felonies it had charged — because no crimes were committed.
However good was Sidney’s deal, she never should have had to make it. Although I would have advised her to take the deal — a no-brainer — to avoid the rest of the circus, I also would’ve understood if she wanted to force the DA to prove what it had indicted her for.
Three other defendants followed Sidney with similar plea deals, but some didn’t negotiate as well as Sidney did. For example yesterday, attorney Jenna Ellis, looking uncharacteristically disheveled and discombobulated, read a tearful, humiliating apology in open court, confessing she was duped into interfering with Joe Biden’s election in what looked remarkably like a Maoist ‘struggle session.’ It was gross, but at least now she’s out of the crosshairs. Tragic, but understandable.
Sullen NYT pivots on hospital apology; Georgia Trump trial plea deals; pro cyclists crashing right and left; Cat 5 hurricane comes out of nowhere; war mini-roundup; D.C. re-funds police; more.
www.coffeeandcovid.com
apnews.com
