Prof Rubenfeld "Straight Down the Middle" Ep2 (Full): Selective Prosecution & Jury Unanimity

"Episode 2 of the Trump trials: Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld goes over the arguments for selective prosecution and jury unanimity. Proving selective prosecution is very difficult, but Rubenfeld explains why Trump has a serious shot at proving it happened in this case."

NY can argue it wasn't selective prosecution because what about Al Capone? He was a crook and they found a way to take him but. But the difference is, unlike Trump, Capone wasn't targeted for his political beliefs. That's hard to prove in court, where you need a comparable crime that wasn't prosecuted. Rubenfeld cites HILLARY CLINTON funding the peepee hoax and not reporting it as a campaign contribution, which the FEC called her out on but DOJ didn't charge.

There's a difference there that Rubenfeld doesn't get into and it's the typical scenario where a Democrat crime is compared to a Republican non-crime. If you heard former-FEC Chair Brad Smith explanation (posted in comments), the Cohen-Daniels NDA was NOT reportable as a campaign contribution because it's an expense he could've paid anyway, unlike Hillary's "Steele Dossier" which there was one and only reason for her to fund: the election.

With Jury unanimity, even though it's in the Bill of Rights, Rubenfeld says it was a recent SCOTUS decision to make state courts follow it. What NY could cite even after that verdict is case law saying jurors can convict a man of murder if half think he used a knife and the other half think he used a gun. Trump's team would reply, that's different, because murder with either weapon is the same crime, whereas doc falsification to hide campaign finance violations contains a different "underlying" crime than falsifying the docs to hide other falsified docs or a tax form.

Other clips on my channel are from Ep. 1 and the follow-up Q&A. I did not include the basics of the case since there are other vids on that on my channel but he explains it well. It's embedded in this review:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/06/trump-guilty-verdict-there-are-some-serious-constitutional-problems-with-this-case/

Michael Schellenberger 5m review vid with text breakdown:
https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1799165383041228961