JUDGE "LUCY" CANNON IS INCOMPETENT TO HANDLE THE TRUMP CASE

While many observers have voiced concern about the possibility of Judge Judge Aileen M. Cannon being the judge who presides over the coming trial of Donald Trump for his criminal handling of government documents, for her rulings favoring the former president last year, which were overturned unanimously by the 11th District Court of Appeal, there is much more than her potential favoritism to be concerned about.

Judge Cannon was appointed to the bench in November 2020; her 12 years’ experience as a lawyer were the minimum the American Bar Association considers necessary for a judicial nominee to be considered qualified for such a position. She has not previously served as any kind of judge. Since 98 percent of federal criminal cases are resolved through plea deals, she has had only a limited opportunity to learn how to preside over a trial, which raises the question of ability to handle what is certain to be an extraordinarily complex and high-profile courtroom battle royal.

By her own admissions, her experience with criminal trials before being appointed to the federal bench was limited. In her background information to support her nomination as a federal judge, she listed the following:

She worked as a paralegal in the DOJ Civil Rights Division in 2004, before attending law school, where she noted she had “assisted federal prosecutors in two federal criminal jury trials.”

Following her graduation from law school in 2008, after passing the bar she was an associate at the law firm Gibson Dunn from 2009-2013. There, she worked on regulatory proceedings, not criminal matters, including two administrative trials before the Securities and Exchange Commission.

She was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida between 2013-2020, where her work assignment for the first two years was in the major crimes division, where she worked on “a wide range of federal firearms, narcotics, fraud and immigration offenses” resulting in conviction of 41 defendants,. However, most of those cases involved plea deals. She tried only four to a jury verdict, and was the lead counsel for two, both involving a felon charged with possession of a firearm; she was assistant to the main prosecutor in the other two, one of which involved possession of images of child sexual exploitation. In all, the four cases added up to 14 trial days.

Other answers she gave to the questionnaire proved almost no experience or accomplishment that clearly distinguished her as being demonstrably ready to successfully exercise the powers and responsibilities of a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.

Where she as asked to list every published writing she had produced, she listed 20 items. Seventeen of those were articles written in the summer of 2002 when she was a college intern at El Nuevo Herald, with headlines like “Winners in the Library Quest Competition.” The other three were published on the Gibson Dunn website, describing cases the firm had handled; each had three other co-authors.

She was also asked to provide all reports, memorandums and policy statements written for any organization, all testimony or official statements on public or legal policy ever delivered to any public body, and all speeches, talks, panel discussions, lectures or question-and-answer sessions.

Her answer was one word: “None.”

As former federal prosecutor Julie O’Sullivan, now a Georgetown University criminal law professor commented, “She’s both an inexperienced judge and a judge who has previously indicated that she thinks the former president is subject to special rules so who knows what she will do with those issues?”

While federal rules allow Judge Cannon to recuse herself on her own for any reason, and special counsel Jack Smith could ask her to do so under a federal law that says judges are to recuse themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned,” and ask the 11th Circuit appeals court to order her to recuse if she declines, she has already stated she does not intend to recuse herself and the special counsel has said nothing about taking such a step. The 11th Circuit appeals court last year found she was wrong about jurisdiction law, not that she was biased.

Several Florida lawyers who have appeared before her in criminal cases have described her as generally competent and straightforward and as someone who doesn’t have a reputation of being unusually sympathetic to defendants. However, because she is demonstrably inexperienced, she has bristled when her actions are questioned or unexpected issues arise.

This case is guaranteed to include complexities that would be challenging for any judge, and most certainly one who will be learning on the job.

So far, those who are following the case expect fights over the use of classified information as evidence under the Classified Information Procedures Act; Cannon has never dealt with this law before.

It is expected that Trump’s defense lawyers are likely to move to suppress as evidence the notes and testimony from Mr. Corcoran. While another federal judge has already ruled that a grand jury could get otherwise confidential lawyer communications under the so-called crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege, and the procedure is generally for a succeeding judge to follow such a decision in making their rulings, Cannon is not legally bound to follow that decision in determining what evidence can be used in trial.

It is additionally expected that the defense will make claims of prosecutorial misconduct that Cannon would have to deal with, something else she has never dealt with in any case.

Duke University law professor and former federal prosecutor Samuel Buell noted that “She is a very inexperienced judge, so even if she weren’t favorable to Trump, she might hear a lot of stuff and think she is hearing stuff that is unusual even though it’s made all the time.”

She will also decide on challenges to potential jurors when either the prosecution or defense claims a juror could be biased for or against Trump, who is the most famous and polarizing person on the planet.

In such a complex and high-profile case, even the most experienced judges are forced to think on their feet to make swift decisions; experience matters.

A helluva lot.

Judge Cannon cannot be allowed to fuck up the most important criminal trial in the history of U.S. jurisprudence.

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