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May 21, 2024 13 mins

The hush money trial has become it's own show. Yesterday, Judge Merchan closed the court to have a yelling match with Costello.

Retired Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, who served on the bench for 31 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, joins Armstrong & Getty to discuss. 

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Defense has tried to make Michael Cohne the accused is
it just doesn't matter whether Michael Cohne wanted to make
money or whether he's believable.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
The document speaks.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
For itself, and Hope Hicks, a loyalist to Donald Trump,
said it was politically motivated.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
So did David Peckerck. The case has been made.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
This judge has allowed the jury to hear falsely that
there was there were campaign violations, and there were not.
And so I'm quite convinced that this jury thinks that
there was a verified and established campaign violation committed and
connected to Trump.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
That's just not the case. I've been saying for a while.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Just from a media standpoint, MSNBC's got their view of
the trial. Fox has their view of the trial, and
I feel like the people on CNN, basically you get
a couple of different views that they don't seem to
be shading it one way or the other near as much.
But I don't know the point is of even taking
in any of these legal pundits because they're all over

(01:05):
the place, and of course you know there's an outcome
I want, so I tend to agree with the ones
that you know, talk about it the way I want
it to turn out. But there's a lot of really
experienced lawyers, former prosecutors, blah blah blah, that have one
hundred and eighty degree different opinions where we are on
this thing. Yeah, yeah, well, okay, And how honest are

(01:25):
they being?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I don't have any idea.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah, I would say several of them, including one we
just heard, is so transparently full of crap and so
clearly pandering that there need not be taken seriously. But
to discuss the chaos, especially yesterday in the Trump trial.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Great to welcome.

Speaker 5 (01:44):
Back retired Superior Court judge Larry Goodman, former attorney elevating
the Supreme Court or the Superior Court in the eighties.
Retired after thirty one years, handled many many murder trials
in Alameda County in the Bay Area, among other things,
interestingly started the Cross Crossroads program to help rehab felons

(02:05):
and give them a second chance, which I think is
a fabulous and worthy endeavor.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Larry good to have you back.

Speaker 6 (02:10):
How are you Thanks for having me. I'm doing great.
We're sitting here in Alameda on the back of our boat,
just taking in the morning sunshine.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Why so there was a guy on the stand yesterday,
this Costello guy who kept rolling his eyes with the
judge or saying ah geez after the judge would say
sustained or whatever, and at one point was trying to
stare the judge down. How do you have you ever
had that happen to you and how are you supposed

(02:39):
to handle it as a judge?

Speaker 6 (02:41):
Well, it starts the way before that witness is about
controlling the courtroom. I mean I did cases where I
had people charged with murders sitting next to me on
the witness stand, and they weren't always agreeable to what
I was doing. But you don't just start getting mad
and start yelling back at the witness. There are ways
to do it, and sometimes it's better, I know, he

(03:01):
closed the courtroom and shoot on Costello for a little bit.
It's usually a lot more effective to stop the witness,
look at the jury, and then scold the witness while
you're looking at the jury, to let the jury know
that you really disapprove of what this witness is doing.
To get into an ego match with Costello by closing
the courtroom and yelling at each other, I don't think

(03:24):
accomplished as much.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Interesting.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
Yeah, indeed, so Andy McCarthy suggested Andy McCarthy in the
National Review that the judge had been wildly inconsistent in
overruling or allowing objections to Costello's testimony, and that it
just wasn't even handed and it was frustrating to Costello,

(03:47):
who's an experienced attorney. How aware of you aware of
the testimony are you? And does that ring Trudy at all?

Speaker 6 (03:54):
Yes, I mean I unfortunately, I'm one of these news junkies,
so I follow the stuff for you closely. And it's
almost like I think Trey Goudi described it as, there's
this different strike zone when the defense is asking questions
versus when the prosecution is asking questions. And I've never
heard of a judge normally there's a question that's a

(04:15):
yes or no question and the person starts to explain,
the response from the judge will be you have to
answer it yes or no, then you can explain your answer.
This judge said to answer it yes or no and
didn't let the witness explain his answer at all. So
that's just it's almost like a parallel universe. What's going
on in that court?

Speaker 5 (04:35):
Last time you were on we asked you, you know
what percentage of judges shouldn't probably be judges, and whether
this guy was on the list. And my recollection is
is you're not impressed by Wan merchand.

Speaker 6 (04:47):
I am less than impressed. Less than not impressed. I
guess it would be the appropriate way. I mean, as
rulings just they don't make any sense. The ruling he
made about the expert FEC witness that makes no sense.
You get he said, well, you have two experts. I
will confuse the jury. That's what witnesses do. That's what
experts men, and give an opinion. The jury decides which

(05:10):
one's believable. It's not up to him to limit what
the jury here is When there are competing points of
view about a particular point of law or a particular.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Fact, I guess it's a different philosophy. And I don't
know how many judges have the philosophy that this guy
might have, that his job as a judge is to
have a view of the world and try to push
court cases the direction of his view of the world
to make the world a better place, as opposed to
just applying the law in a dispassionate way is that

(05:43):
the way you're say in well.

Speaker 6 (05:44):
Then he should run for Congress and not be a judge.
I mean, you're supposed to be on the bench and
you're you're supposed to let your call balls and strikes basically.
And I had trials where the outcome was anything but
you know, totally opposite of what I wanted to happen.
But it happened, and we just try to give people
a fair trial. He obviously has a bias. He's not

(06:06):
even trying to hide the bias. Maybe that's the way
it works in certain courts in New York, but it's
so obvious that it's it's troubling almost.

Speaker 5 (06:16):
And I'm assuming you've talked to fellow judges, retired judges
about this case at least a little bit.

Speaker 6 (06:22):
Oh yeah, yeah, a couple of my friends. We stay
in touch. We don't, you know, just hey, what do
you think about this? And then it's I don't think
you'll find anybody that's really being honest. The universally won't
say this judge has done a really poor job of
presiding over this trial.

Speaker 5 (06:40):
Retired Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman on the line. So
let's talk about some of the explosive developments of the
other day in which Michael Cohen allowed it. Yeah, yeah,
I stole like, what was it, jack, fifty thousand dollars
from the twenty five I think, yeah, from the Trump
organization while he was spreading money around various fixers and

(07:01):
hoods and porn stars and the rest of it.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
What do you think the jury made of that, Larry.

Speaker 6 (07:06):
Well, I mean, he admitted to a felony on the stand,
so you know, it goes to credibility. It's it's very
strange to have a witness confess to a crime that's
of a higher quality than the crime for which the
defendants on trial. You know, it's, Wow, you just admitted

(07:26):
stealing all this money, so we already know you're a liar,
and now we know you're a crook. So it should
it should affect the credibility of the way the jury
tests his testimony or reacts to his testimony.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
I would think, I know, it's an old, tired question
of what judges wear under their robes, But as you
got later in your career, did you move away from
dress pants and closer to pajamas?

Speaker 6 (07:50):
Pretty well, I never wore I think my first five years,
I wore tie in a regular dress shirt and from
then on it was Levi's and golf shirts.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Yeah, that's good enough. Just to justice deserves a non
sweaty neck per something. Larry Goodman, retired judges on the line, Larry,
I realize, Oh that's right.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
I know what I want to ask.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
So the prosecution has not yet made clear the underlying
crime that turns the paperwork errors or deliberate omissions into
a felony. Don't they have to say what crime he's
charged with at some point?

Speaker 6 (08:31):
Well, they do, and they should have been made to
do that before they ever put on their first witness.
They certainly should have been required to do that through
an expert witness, to which then the defense could have
had their own expert witness. But now it looks like
they're not going to find out until closing argument. And
the interesting thing about a closing argument is the jury

(08:52):
is instructed that what did lawyers say during argument is
not evidence. So the definition of from somebody who's giving
an argument that they can't consider it is a factual statement.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Interesting, All right, go ahead, Jack, how often were you wrong?
Do you think about what direction you thought the jury
was gonna go since you all heard the same thing, probably.

Speaker 6 (09:26):
You know, maybe less than five percent, And most of.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
The time you had an idea how you thought the
jury was going to go.

Speaker 6 (09:33):
Yeah, And there was only a couple of cases where
the jury came back not guilty on a couple of
multiple homicide cases that the whole courtroom was just shocked.
One time it was because of jury misconduct and the
other time, but I think the jury was just scared
to death. They wanted to just get out of Oakland
without getting okay.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
So well, then that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (09:54):
Then, So practically all the time, since those are two
outlier situations, practically all the time you knew how the
jury was going to go. Why do I keep hearing
on cable news. There's no predicting a jury. You never
have any idea how a jury is going to react.
Those seemed to be in conflict.

Speaker 6 (10:10):
Well, because where I was practicing or where I was
sitting as a judge, by the time we got to trial,
things have been patched out pretty well. Everybody kind of
knew what was going on. I mean, jurys did crazy things,
don't get me wrong. But most of the time, by
the time you go through a preliminary hearing. You go
through pre trial hearings, you kind of know where the

(10:32):
evidence is going to lie. Unless somebody does something crazy
during the trial, everybody kind of knows how it's going
to come out.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Interesting.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
So back to Jack's question, how surprised would you be
scale of one to ten if the jury came back
with a conviction of Trump on one or more of
the felon accounts.

Speaker 6 (10:53):
Not surprised at all. Oh really, I mean it's because
the way the trial's gone. I mean again, I don't
know what this jury. I haven't seen the jury. I
don't know what they look like. I'm a little concerned
that they now have eight days to find the ways
to get in trouble. Between now when they come back
to hear arguments and instructions that game.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
What do you mean by getting trouble?

Speaker 6 (11:15):
They go back to work and their coworker says, hey,
did you hear about that? I understand you guys weren't
in the courtroom when that happened, or oh yeah. So
they've got all this time to go back to their
regular lives and have people interact with them, and even
if they try to adhere to the admonition, you're not
to discuss this case or let anybody discuss it with you.
It's pretty hard to live by those rules for eight

(11:36):
days when you're back to your normal life.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
How about over Memorial Day weekend there's a little drink
y pooing folve perhaps.

Speaker 5 (11:44):
Why do you think they're taking such a long break
before the closing arguments?

Speaker 6 (11:47):
I have no idea. I mean it's unheard of. I mean, well,
even on death penalty cases, we wouldn't let the jury
wander around for eight days before we did closing arguments instructions.
That just makes And they're going to do instructions, I
guess this afternoon. So then what's the what's the hang up?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Right?

Speaker 6 (12:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Okay, so this this seems to be like an untapped
scandal here because I didn't hear anybody explain why it
was going to be a week?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Want to get back in there?

Speaker 5 (12:18):
Well, and I speaking as a several time juror. The
idea that you'd get your jury instructions and then go
home for a week before you come back, that's idiotic.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Those instructions are important.

Speaker 6 (12:30):
Yeah, though they're No, they're not going to be instructed,
they're just going to hammer out the instruction. So I'm
my understanding is the judge likes have closing arguments, go
right into instructions and then start deliberations. And that's all
well and good, but you don't by the time you
get back next Tuesday, jeerors are going to have forgotten things.
They're not going to be in the same mindset, like

(12:51):
I said, They're going to go back to their regular
lives and maybe been infected by some piece of information
that they're not supposed to know about. Or they may
get curious and go google, you know, FBC laws or
someone who knows what they're gonna do.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
So what a dumpster fire it really?

Speaker 6 (13:09):
Is it? Jonathan Turley said it best when he said
it's like a parallel universe of the trial. It just
makes no sense in so many different different aspects. Wow.

Speaker 5 (13:19):
Retired Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, Larry, great to talk
to you, Thanks again for the insight and happy sailing.

Speaker 6 (13:26):
Thanks till very much, Calculator, Bye bye, Armstrong and Getty
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