Charge-Stacking Against Trump: Those 34 Counts
4th April 2023
Andrew C. McCarthy wrote this four days ago, but it continues to be relevant:
Thirty-four counts … in a case, again, that federal prosecutors decided wasn’t worth charging at all.
This is a classic abuse of power. Unscrupulous prosecutors will sometimes camouflage with quantity their case’s lack of quality.
When serious crimes have been committed, prosecutors do not need to run up the score with a high number of counts. A single charge, or a handful of them, provides the court with more than enough years of sentencing exposure. Once convicted, a serious criminal in that kind of case will be incarcerated for a very long time — even for life.
By contrast, if prosecutors do not have evidence of a serious crime, by loading up an indictment with dozens of charges, they can try to signal to the eventual trial jury that the defendant must be guilty of something. They hope the jurors will assume that, even if the evidence doesn’t seem strong, the government wouldn’t have alleged so many crimes unless the defendant was a truly diabolical criminal.
This is a significant enough due process abuse that, in federal law, the Justice Department has guidance directing prosecutors not to engage in it…
It’s called “charge-stacking.” Because the jury has to vote on each charge, the idea is that it is unlikely they will acquit on every single one. So it improves the odds immeasurably, plus the MSM can play it up to make the accused seem to be a terrible person. That’s their specialty, with Trump.