'Loophole': Ex-prosecutor points to 'kind of bias' that could favor Trump's appeal

The fight is far from over after former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsification of business records — because he has multiple strategies available to him to challenge it, experts said.

According to Politico, "The former president has made no secret that he plans to challenge the verdict against him in the hush money case — and attorneys say he has an extensive menu of legal avenues to pursue. Some think he has a decent chance of a reversal.

"...Trump’s first chance to challenge the verdict will come within 30 days of his sentencing on July 11, at which point he can turn to New York’s First Judicial Department appellate court, not far from where he just stood trial."

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This court has the unusual power to re-examine facts in the case, which appellate judges typically do not do, and it has so much influence in reviewing cases like this, noted the report, that it is sometimes called "the 13th juror."

A significant issue in an appeal could be the way Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg upgraded the falsification charges from misdemeanors to felonies. This is allowed if the prosecution can demonstrate the fraud was committed with intent to conceal another crime — and Trump's team may argue the prosecution did not adequately prove this, even though the jury found it did.

"To prove the underlying crime, jurors had to agree Trump used 'unlawful means' — but they did not have to agree on a singular unlawful act," said the report — an arrangement that Trump supporters have tried to claim is unconstitutional, although the Supreme Court has actually blessed this standard before.

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However, former prosecutor Arlo Devlin-Brown told Politico, “The combination of the prosecution offering three different theories as to how the false records could have violated state election law, limited instruction on what some of those theories required, and the fact that jurors were not required to agree on which had been proven creates a real issue for the appeal.”

Another former Manhattan prosecutor, Diana Florence, said that there is “a loophole, if you will, that exists very uniquely in the appellate division of New York. Given there’s an inherent kind of bias with white-collar defendants, who are treated less severely, to that extent it could cut in [Trump's] favor.”

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