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New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan gave the jurors in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial their most important directive on Wednesday morning: how, procedurally, to decide the outcome of the case.
Reading from the 55-page set of jury instructions, Merchan somberly told members of the 12-person panel that the responsibility of evaluating the evidence presented at trial rests with them.
He then explained next steps, including what jurors must agree on — and what they do not have to agree on.
The specific language of the jury instructions was haggled over at length last week by attorneys for both the defense and the prosecution, given the instructions’ inherent power in shaping how the jury comes to a verdict.
Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. Each of the counts corresponds to a different document, including invoices and checks reimbursing his former fixer, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels.
“Under our law,” Merchan told the jury, “a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when, with intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof, that person: makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise.”
To find Trump guilty on any count, the jurors must agree that he intentionally — with “conscious objective or purpose” — sought to defraud “any person or entity,” with the intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.”
So, they have to come to the conclusion that Trump falsified the records in furtherance of some other crime. That crime, according to prosecutors, is New York Election Law section 17-152, which prevents any “conspir[acy] to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public…
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