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Good morning. Donald Trump becomes the first former president to face a criminal trial today when jury selection begins in Manhattan, and we have what you need to know. Plus, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling paved the way for more transportation workers to file lawsuits in court rather than private arbitration; Jane Street accused rival hedge fund firm Millennium of stealing a valuable in-house trading strategy; and a Johnson Controls subsidiary agreed to pay $750 million to settle a lawsuit over toxic “forever chemicals.” Let’s jump in.
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REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (L) REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo
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When prospective New York City jurors gather for Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial today, it may be tough to find ones who don’t have a viewpoint about the brash businessman-turned-politician – and the lawyers will need to look out for jurors who might have an agenda, writes Jack Queen.
“There is almost nobody in New York who doesn’t have an opinion about Donald Trump,” said trial lawyer Paul Applebaum, who is not involved in the case. “A lot of people think he’s either Satan incarnate or the second coming of Jesus.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to falsifying business records to cover up a sexual encounter that porn star Stormy Daniels says they had. Jury selection is likely to take roughly a week in a case expected to last six to eight weeks.
Justice Juan Merchan has ruled the jury pool will remain anonymous, but prosecutors, defense lawyers and jury consultants will be given the names of potential jurors, allowing them to trawl the internet and social media for signs of potential bias. Both sides will need to be on guard for stealth jurors who have an agenda but pretend to be neutral. That risk is especially high in Trump’s case given its implications for the election, according to legal experts.
Trump’s camp will likely target less educated, working-class men who have negative views of law enforcement and get their news from more conservative media outlets, legal experts said. Conversely, prosecutors will likely search for people with college degrees and white collar jobs who get their news from more liberal news outlets like MSNBC. They are likely to prioritize getting women on the jury, according to legal experts.
More coverage of the trial:
>> Trump’s $130,000 hush money payment and the path to his criminal trial
>> What charges does Trump face in New York’s hush money trial?
>> Trump hush money case: What is the gag order and what does it do?
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- A $10,000 donation to U.S. Senator Robert Menendez’s legal defense fund by the wife of a federal judge did not run afoul of judicial ethics rules, the chief judge of his court concluded in dismissing a misconduct complaint filed against him. The decision, made public on Friday, dispensed with a complaint that the judicial watchdog group Fix the Court filed in February against Judge William Greenberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims following the release of tax filings detailing the December contribution by his wife.
- The Iowa Supreme Court declined to suspend the law license of a former state prosecutor who allegedly made sexually explicit and derogatory comments while in office, including calling judges “bitches.” Instead, Iowa’s top court opted to reprimand Reuben Neff, who was the former top prosecutor of Wapello County, finding that he made inappropriate comments in the workplace. Neff, who is now in private practice, said in a statement that he appreciated “the care the justices placed in their decision and take their concerns to heart.”
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That is how much Johnson Controls said its subsidiary Tyco Fire Products agreed to pay in a settlement with U.S. public water systems that claimed toxic “forever chemicals” in firefighting foam made by the company had contaminated their water supplies. The money provided by the settlement will help cities, towns and other public water systems remediate contamination of per- and polyfluoralkyl substances, or PFAS. Tyco is among nearly two dozen chemical companies that have faced lawsuits brought by water systems over PFAS pollution in sprawling litigation that has been centralized in a South Carolina federal court.
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- Coming up today, Hannah Gutierrez, armorer on “Rust,” is scheduled to be sentenced for involuntary manslaughter over the 2021 fatal shooting of the Western movie’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by actor Alec Baldwin during filming in New Mexico. Gutierrez faces up to 18 months in state prison.
- On Tuesday, a former DraftKings executive is expected to take the witness stand as a judge hears evidence in a lawsuit by his former employer accusing him of misappropriating trade secrets after he joined sports betting rival Fanatics just days before the Super Bowl. DraftKings is seeking to have U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick block Michael Hermalyn’s employment at Fanatics, something the Boston judge declined at a hearing in February to do in a temporary restraining order that barred him from soliciting its clients or using its trade secrets.
- On Wednesday, “Bowie Bonds” creator David Pullman’s Structured Asset Sales will ask the 2nd Circuit to revive a copyright lawsuit based on similarities between Ed Sheeran’s hit “Thinking Out Loud” and Marvin Gaye’s classic “Let’s Get It On.” A Manhattan federal court dismissed SAS’ lawsuit following a win for Sheeran in a jury trial over related claims from the heirs of “Let’s Get It On” co-writer Ed Townsend.
- On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn is slated to hear arguments as former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang urges the court to dismiss an indictment accusing him of involvement in a fraud involving $2 billion in loans to three state-owned companies. The so-called “tuna bonds” case stems from financing extended to the three state companies by Credit Suisse and Russian bank VTB for projects to develop Mozambique’s fishing industry and improve maritime security between 2013 and 2016. Chang, who has pleaded not guilty, said there are no allegations any of his conduct impacted the U.S.
- On Friday, the Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules is slated to hold a hearing and is set to consider the possible use of AI as evidence, and how AI could impact evidentiary rules.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that shareholders cannot sue companies for fraud if they flout a rule requiring disclosure of trends expected to affect their bottom line unless the omission makes another statement misleading. The 9-0 ruling authored by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor handed a victory to Macquarie Infrastructure in a proposed shareholder class action accusing the company of failing to disclose that its revenues were vulnerable to an international phase-out of high-sulfur fuel oil between 2016 and 2018.
- The chief executive of a U.S. biotechnology company that falsely promised investors it could produce a quick and accurate COVID-19 test was sentenced to seven years in jail, the DOJ said.
- Moderna’s patent lawsuit claiming Pfizer and BioNTech copied its Covid-19 vaccine technology will be put on hold while the U.S. Patent Office determines whether two of the three Moderna patents at issue are valid, a Massachusetts federal court said. U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns stayed the closely watched case over Moderna’s objections after determining that the patent office’s rulings would “simplify” the patent-infringement lawsuit, according to an entry on the court’s docket.
- A company that assembles products with foreign components in the U.S. can legally advertise them as “American made,” the 10th Circuit said. The court determined that construction-equipment maker I Dig Texas can call its equipment American made even though some of it was assembled in China with Chinese and Canadian parts, rejecting a lawsuit from the company’s competitor Creager Services.
- A judge in London rejected Apple’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit valued at nearly $1 billion, ruling the company must face allegations it charged more than 1,500 UK-based developers unfair commission fees on purchases of apps and other content. Sean Ennis, a competition law professor and economist, is spearheading the case, which was filed at London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal last year and alleges Apple charged developers unfair commissions of up to 30%.
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