by Because last week was Thanksgiving Week and it was devoted to family I missed seeing a court notice in the New York AG’s lawsuit against the NRA. It dealt with jury selection and the trial start date.
Judge Joel Cohen has ordered that jury selection begin on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 in the late morning. Jury selection will continue day to day until a jury is selected. It will take place in Room 300 of the New York State Supreme Court Building located at 60 Centre Street in Manhattan.
The trial itself will start at 9:30am on January 8th, 2024 in the same courtroom.
Oh, to have the free time (and money) to fly to New York and stay throughout the trial. I don’t know if the trial will be televised but will check on it.
UPDATE: I probably should have checked on this first before originally posting the above. However, I just assumed New York, like most states, had some provision for the audio-visual coverage of most court cases.
As what often happens when you make an assumption, I was wrong.
From Politico:
Trump’s case again highlights how New York has among the most restrictive laws in the nation banning cameras and broadcasts inside the courtroom in most proceedings, a law that dates back to the 1930s. The state Legislature has barely tinkered with it since then. Only Washington D.C. is more stringent on media coverage inside the court, according a report last year by the The Fund for Modern Courts, a nonpartisan nonprofit.
The Village Sun adds that the law banning cameras and recording devices in the courtroom stemmed from the Lindbergh kidnapping trial case in the 1930s.
While there is a bill pending in the New York Senate and Assembly that would allow televising of court proceedings, it has been referred to committee where it remains. Interestingly, the bill is opposed by the NY chapter of the ACLU on the grounds that there is no provision for a defendant to preclude televising a trial. They contend this could impair a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial.
I guess we will have to rely upon news reports, sketchy as they will be, to know what is going on in the trial day to day.
UPDATE II: NRA In Danger has more on what to expect in the trial now that a date has been set. If what was quoted from a motion transcript carries over to the trial, and there is no reason to expect it won’t, this is not going to be pretty. Even the most ardent backers of Wayne should be cringing over all the dirty laundry of his that will be aired. The old excuse of “well, Wayne told me it isn’t true” just won’t cut it anymore. Those who listened to it and excused his actions should be hanging their heads in shame as they must accept some responsibility for the perilous state of the organization.