'Chances of conviction quite high': Trump's defense team 'going for a hung jury'

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00:00 Closing arguments are due to take place in Donald Trump's hush money trial and

00:04 from tomorrow morning the jury will begin deliberations on whether the

00:08 former president should be convicted in connection with hush money payments made

00:12 to in 2016 to former porn star Stormy Daniels. The New York prosecution is just

00:18 one of four criminal cases Trump is confronting as he seeks re-election in

00:22 November. Is Donald Trump guilty beyond reasonable doubt? That's what

00:33 prosecutors will try to convince jurors today during the closing arguments of

00:37 the historic hush money case where they will likely recap key moments from more

00:42 than four weeks of testimony such as the paper trail of emails and bank

00:46 statements they claim is behind a hundred and thirty thousand dollars of

00:50 hush money payments made to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Payments they claim were

00:56 part of a criminal scheme to influence the result of the 2016 election. Pivotally

01:02 the prosecution is also expected to drill down on the credibility of Trump's

01:06 former lawyer and fixer Michael Collins account and highlight the evidence that

01:10 they say corroborates his claims that Trump was directly involved in the

01:14 scheme and even authorize the payments. The defense on the other hand just has

01:20 to sow seeds of doubt in the prosecution's case. There are some holes

01:24 in the prosecution's case and I think you know both sides here are gonna have

01:31 a shot at a victory. The jury needs to believe Michael Cohen in order to

01:35 convict and I am I'm confident that the defense is gonna stand up there and say

01:39 that. They're saying if you don't believe him and here's all the reasons you

01:43 shouldn't believe him you cannot convict beyond a reasonable doubt. All 12 members

01:48 of the jury must be convinced that Trump is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Their

01:53 deliberations behind closed doors are expected to be lengthy and if an

01:57 agreement cannot be made the judge could declare a mistrial. All up Trump is

02:02 accused of 34 felony counts. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of up to four

02:08 years in prison. We can now bring in Eric Lisanne, a legal analyst and former US

02:15 federal prosecutor who joins us from Washington DC. Eric good to have you here

02:20 on the program today. Now closing arguments are due to take place. You have

02:24 been a former prosecutor. What would you be looking to do? Well as a prosecutor

02:31 this is the time to put all of the evidence together in one summation for

02:36 the jury to connect all the dots together itself in a very easy way and

02:41 the prosecution can do this. This has been a very overwhelming case. There are

02:47 perhaps some slight areas where things are not locked down rock-solid but

02:54 overall the balance of the evidence is more than compelling and once all of the

03:01 evidence is highlighted in the particular context that leads to guilt

03:06 the strength of the case is going to be amply demonstrated for the jury. So in

03:13 light of that I would say the chances of conviction are quite high and I think

03:17 the defense understands that. What the defense strategy seems to have been with

03:22 sort of a scattershot approach has been to try to pick off that one or maybe

03:28 more jurors but they only need one that despite the strength of the evidence and

03:33 the logical conclusions that must be drawn from that evidence will say look

03:39 I'm not going to follow the evidence I'm not going to follow the facts or the law

03:43 as the judge instructs me today but I am simply going to hold out my vote and not

03:49 be part of a unanimous jury. That would be called a hung jury and I think that's

03:54 what the defense is going for here. Their chances of an outright acquittal are

03:59 very very small. So you're saying that Donald Trump's defense is going to try

04:03 and find that one person in the jury that has its doubts. Yes exactly because

04:08 in that jury of 12 that's going to go back and deliberate they must be

04:13 unanimous. If only one juror refuses to go along then that would result in a

04:20 hung jury. And then what happens if there is a hung trial what that what decisions

04:24 does a judge have to make? In that case the judge doesn't have to really do a

04:30 whole lot. What the judge's main role is making sure that the jury comes to a

04:36 conclusion one way or the other. So the judge is the one who decides okay they've

04:42 been deliberating a long time days weeks even sometimes and it appears that

04:46 there's no likelihood that further deliberation will lead to a unanimous

04:51 verdict one way or the other so I will declare the trial over and the jury

04:56 quote-unquote hung what we call hung. At that point it's up to the prosecution

05:01 that would be the office of District Attorney Alvin Bragg to make a decision

05:06 as to whether to retry the case or not. I think given the

05:10 strength of the case it's almost certain that the district attorney would in fact

05:15 decide to retry the case if that happens. And what happens if Donald Trump is

05:20 found guilty? If he's found guilty the case will then proceed to the sentence

05:26 phase which is the next phase of the trial. There'll be an investigation by

05:31 the pretrial services team that's affiliated with the court system there

05:37 in in New York in the Manhattan office and they will write a report and a

05:44 recommendation as will the prosecution and the defense of course will write

05:49 their summary their submission as to why the defense should not be prison and

05:56 in this case that's how it's going to play out. All of that will be submitted

06:00 to the judge and then in a couple months time he will pronounce the sentence

06:05 which in a case like this could be jail but not necessarily is jail. A lot will

06:10 determine on some of these other factors and how the judge himself has viewed the

06:15 evidence. If he's found guilty how quickly will this sentencing process

06:19 happen? That's of course if the jury is able to reach a verdict soon. Yes that

06:24 yes that's exactly right. There will be approximately two months maybe a little

06:30 bit more normally in the in the sentencing before the sentencing comes.

06:34 It seems to be that's the timeline normally in the in the Manhattan courts

06:40 there and at that time the judge will pronounce the sentence. Now that doesn't

06:44 mean that the sentence would begin right away. Let's say that Trump is sentenced

06:50 to hypothetically 12 months of home confinement as opposed to prison. Would

06:55 that start right away? Not necessarily. In fact it's not likely that it would start

07:01 right away. Probably the judge would allow Trump to appeal the conviction and

07:07 the sentencing before the imposition of it and that appeal would push it beyond

07:13 the election. So it's not likely that Trump would begin serving his sentence

07:18 before the election started. We'll see how this case pans out Eric. Thank you

07:24 very much for that Eric Lisson joining us there. My pleasure.

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