[Lord Dave]

Yes there is a deal.  How are you this stupid?
She entered into a contract.  If she does not hold up her end of the contract by testifying truthfully, which means she can't take the 5th, she will have her deal canceled.

Its really not complicated.  I can only assume you simply don't understand how deals work.

Testifying truthfully has nothing to do with the 5th Amendment.

You don't tell the truth or give testemony if you plead the 5th.  Kinda the whole point.

A prosecutor cannot, BY law, frame a deal negating the Bill of Rights.

Lets cut to the chase, shall we?
I'll ask you to quote the law.
You'll refuse, likely atating something about 'do your own research'
I'll say the burden of proof is on you.
You'll say its on me and probably insult me.

Repeat.

[markjo]

Yes there is a deal.  How are you this stupid?
She entered into a contract.  If she does not hold up her end of the contract by testifying truthfully, which means she can't take the 5th, she will have her deal canceled.

Its really not complicated.  I can only assume you simply don't understand how deals work.

Testifying truthfully has nothing to do with the 5th Amendment. A prosecutor cannot, BY law, frame a deal negating the Bill of Rights.

She already plead guilty.  How is she going to incriminate herself further by testifying against Trump?

[Action80]

Yes there is a deal.  How are you this stupid?
She entered into a contract.  If she does not hold up her end of the contract by testifying truthfully, which means she can't take the 5th, she will have her deal canceled.

Its really not complicated.  I can only assume you simply don't understand how deals work.

Testifying truthfully has nothing to do with the 5th Amendment.

You don't tell the truth or give testemony if you plead the 5th.  Kinda the whole point.

A prosecutor cannot, BY law, frame a deal negating the Bill of Rights.

Lets cut to the chase, shall we?
I'll ask you to quote the law.
You'll refuse, likely atating something about 'do your own research'
I'll say the burden of proof is on you.
You'll say its on me and probably insult me.

Repeat.

You need someone to prove to you that prosecutors cannot ignore or violate the US Constitution?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/544

https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao153_0.pdf

[Lord Dave]

Yes there is a deal.  How are you this stupid?
She entered into a contract.  If she does not hold up her end of the contract by testifying truthfully, which means she can't take the 5th, she will have her deal canceled.

Its really not complicated.  I can only assume you simply don't understand how deals work.

Testifying truthfully has nothing to do with the 5th Amendment.

You don't tell the truth or give testemony if you plead the 5th.  Kinda the whole point.

A prosecutor cannot, BY law, frame a deal negating the Bill of Rights.

Lets cut to the chase, shall we?
I'll ask you to quote the law.
You'll refuse, likely atating something about 'do your own research'
I'll say the burden of proof is on you.
You'll say its on me and probably insult me.

Repeat.

You need someone to prove to you that prosecutors cannot ignore or violate the US Constitution?

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/544

https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/ao153_0.pdf

You've shown nothing of substance.  All you've shown is an oath to support the constitution.  No where does it say that a plea deal can't require the defendant voluntarily waive their rights.

But you suck at law, so its not surprising.

[markjo]

Umm…. She already waived her 5th amendment rights against self incrimination by pleading guilty, which usually involves providing details of the crimes that you admitted to committing.

[Lord Dave]

And another pleads guilty.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/24/1208198441/jenna-ellis-georgia-guilty-plea

Weird.  You'd think all these lawyers wouldn't need to do that if what they did was perfectly legal and the election was stolen.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

And another pleads guilty.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/24/1208198441/jenna-ellis-georgia-guilty-plea

Weird.  You'd think all these lawyers wouldn't need to do that if what they did was perfectly legal and the election was stolen.

They're like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Of course, Trump's reaction is to call them rats and throw them off the ship.

Keep in mind, this is just one of a number of sinking ships in Trump's fleet each with a similar rat drama unfolding.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/07/politics/trump-indictments-criminal-cases/

[markjo]

Looks like another half dozen rats might be getting ready to jump ship.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/politics/fulton-county-da-is-discussing-plea-deals-with-at-least-5-more-trump-co-defendants/index.html

[Lord Dave]

Looks like another half dozen rats might be getting ready to jump ship.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/politics/fulton-county-da-is-discussing-plea-deals-with-at-least-5-more-trump-co-defendants/index.html

At this rate, Trump will be the only one on trial.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

Looks like another half dozen rats might be getting ready to jump ship.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/25/politics/fulton-county-da-is-discussing-plea-deals-with-at-least-5-more-trump-co-defendants/index.html

At this rate, Trump will be the only one on trial.

Ha!

The thing is that only the first few rats get the sweet deal. Once prosecutors have enough evidence to seal the case, the rest of the rats are out of luck. But it's OK, I'm sure Trump will supply bail money and lawyers to help out all of his incarcerated supporters who ignorantly destroyed their lives by being part of his stupid plan helping Putin to overthrow our government.

[honk]

I think it would be a big mistake to stop making deals on the assumption that the case is "sealed" and further evidence is unnecessary. The more evidence we can get to hammer in as firmly as possible the fact of Trump's corruption, the better off we as a nation will be in the long run. We won't be able to kill off the cult of Trump within our lifetimes, but future generations at least should be able to accept Trump's corruption as a substantiated historical fact, not a controversial gray area of history that nobody really knows the truth about.

[Tom Bishop]

I don't see any evidence that any of these people have actually agreed to "flip" or testify negatively against Trump. These deals are to testify truthfully, purportedly given purely in the interest of truth. As much as you guys imagine that it was communicated that they need to testify a certain way, a prosecutor can't communicate to the person that they expect them to testify in a specific manner, or else it would taint the case. The courts frown on plea bargains which are contingent on a specific testimony.

Review that document Marjo posted. It suggests that a prosecutor would get in trouble if they communicated that they wanted someone to testify in a certain way for the agreement -

Where does it say that Powell agreed to turn against Trump or testify negatively against Trump.

Such plea deals are a common strategy used by prosecutors to get accomplices to testify against the real target (in this case, Donald Trump).

ACCOMPLICE TESTIMONY UNDER CONTINGENT PLEA
AGREEMENTS

In a criminal case the prosecutor will often make a plea agree-
ment with an accomplice of the defendant. Under these tradition-
ally sanctioned agreements the accomplice receives a reduced
sentence in return for full and truthful testimony during the defend-
ant's trial. In recent years, some prosecutors have further condi-
tioned the accomplice's reduction in sentence upon the defendant's
indictment or conviction or the prosecutor's satisfaction with the ac-
complice's testimony.

I took a look at that document:

"A number of state courts have censured bargains conditioned upon a witness's agreement to testify in a particular manner and have overturned the resulting convictions on both due process and policy grounds."

A deal can't be made to testify in a particular manner. So such deals are made with nothing more than a hope or assumption that the truth is in your favor. These deals are not an agreement for the witness to "flip" or "turn against" anybody.

Read the bolded in that quote:

Currently, about ninety percent of all criminal defendants plead guilty, and an unknown but substantial percentage of these defendants agree to testify against their co-defendants or co-conspirators in return for prosecutorial leniency. If the accomplice does not testify fully and truthfully, the prosecutor may refuse the leniency promised in the bargain. Courts sanction these "traditional" accomplice plea agreements and recognize them as a proper exercise of prosecutorial authority.

The bargain is only revoked based on grounds of truth, not because you testified in any particular manner. "Testifying against" in that sentence may mean that you are subpoenaed to testify in a particular case that is accusing someone of something. The agreement of the plea agreement is just to testify truthfully and nothing more.

The document you posted actually goes on at length to show what a plea deal really is. It is just encouragement to testify truthfully. That document says that prosecutors are officers of the court to encourage the truth, not to get people to testify in a certain way for convictions:

Prosecutors, whose duty is to seek justice rather than convictions⁹⁰, should not place the desire for convictions ahead of the pursuit of unbiased testimony. Buying testimony with conditional leniency tips the scales of justice by inviting perjury.

Courts have rejected plea bargains which are contingent on testimonies that lead to arrests:

United States v. Bareshs is the only recent case in which a federal court deemed a plea bargain agreement so conducive to perjury that it tainted the testimony beyond any possibility of redemption. In Baresh, the contingent plea agreement provided the witness with a pardon and permission to keep assets obtained with his narcotics profits if his testimony led to the arrest and indictment of two specified defendants. If the testimony did not lead to arrest and indictment, however, the witness probably would receive a fifteen-year sentence even if he told the full truth. The district court for the Southern District of Texas concluded that the witness's devastating and totally uncorroborated testimony against a defendant whom the government had originally doubted it could indict was so unreliable that its admission violated the defendant's due process rights.

Courts have rejected plea deals that are contingent on the government's satisfaction:

The defendant in Dailey argued that the contingent accomplice agreements violated his due process rights because the agreements required more than full and truthful testimony. Two of the three agreements contained a promise for full cooperation in return for a recommendation of a sentence not to exceed twenty years. Furthermore, depending upon the value of the witnesses' testimony, the prosecution could recommend a sentence of only ten years. The agreement with the third witness consisted of a four-month stay of sentencing, the possibility of a further stay, and the potential for government support on a motion for sentence reduction. These last two benefits depended upon the value or "benefit" of the information to the government as determined by the prosecutor. The district court noted that the agreements required more than full cooperation by the witnesses because otherwise the provisions concerning the ten-year sentences and the further stay of sentencing would be superfluous. Therefore, the district court concluded that the prosecutor provided the witnesses with incentives to lie by conditioning further rewards upon the government's satisfaction.

Contingent plea agreements which elicit a particular testimony usurp the jury's role of determining guilt:

Because prosecutors already have the ability to obtain truthful testimony through traditional plea bargains, contingent agreements can only serve the purpose of eliciting particular testimony which the prosecutor wants to introduce at trial. The obvious danger of this practice is that the prosecutor ignores the principle that all persons are assumed innocent until proven guilty and instead usurps the jury's role of determining guilt.

When the prosecution makes a plea bargain agreement, they are just guessing at the extent of the witnesses' knowledge:

Because the prosecution does not know the extent of a witness's knowledge, the prosecutor must make a subjective decision whether to confer or withhold the benefits of the bargain.

It is wrong think that a plea deal means that someone has "flipped" against someone. The plea agreement is merely meant as additional encouragement to tell the truth, which again you are already required to do.

[honk]

Yes, the deal is for truthful testimony, just like it is with all witnesses who flip, and truthful testimony must therefore be damaging to Trump, because otherwise the prosecution wouldn't be making deals with these witnesses to testify to begin with. I don't think I can put it any more simply than that. The prosecution is not on Trump's side. They are not trying to help him. If they're asking people to testify and making deals with them to that effect, it's because their testimony will hurt Trump. That's how this works. That's how it's always worked. You're quibbling about a distinction without a difference.

[Roundy]

I honestly don't understand why people keep arguing with Tom about this. He's just wrong and you're not going to convince him otherwise.

[Lord Dave]

This is interesting.  Validity is high tho not infallable.

https://sfcriminallawspecialist.com/can-i-be-forced-to-testify-as-a-witness-in-court/

You are a defendant in a criminal case – As an extension of the Fifth Amendment, any criminal defendant cannot be forced to testify in a courtroom.  You should definitely consult with an experienced federal criminal defense lawyer for San Francisco, CA.

As they are defendants, they wouldn't be required to take the stand, which I think is the main point of the plea deal, not the truthful bit.

[markjo]

As they are defendants...

Umm...  No.  Once they plead guilty, their trials are over and they are no longer defendants.  They become convicted criminals who are being called as witnesses for the prosecution.

[Dr Van Nostrand]

Plea deals happen everyday.
These are not defendants with the presumption of innocence, they are convicts who have pled guilty and the only question is of what is appropriate punishment. The punishment will depend on them telling the truth and they have to convince the prosecutors they have some truth worth telling. If the truth is juicy enough, the prosecutors will give the guilty a break in punishment for testifying in court. If the guilty does not tell the truth on the stand that they told the prosecutors, the deal is cancelled and the dumb-ass kraken bitch is guilty of a half dozen felonies instead of misdemeanors.

There's nothing that challenges the Constitution or anything conspiratorial about plea deals. I know lots of people who've been arrested.

[Tom Bishop]

Yes, the deal is for truthful testimony, just like it is with all witnesses who flip, and truthful testimony must therefore be damaging to Trump, because otherwise the prosecution wouldn't be making deals  with these witnesses to testify to begin with. I don't think I can put it any more simply than that. The prosecution is not on Trump's side. They are not trying to help him. If they're asking people to testify and making deals with them to that effect, it's because their testimony will hurt Trump. That's how this works. That's how it's always worked. You're quibbling about a distinction without a difference.

That is how it is displayed in movies that prosecutors are against the defendant, but prosecutors are not meant to be on any one side of the case. Their duty is to truth and justice. See that previous sentence I quoted from Markjo's document on their duty:

Prosecutors, whose duty is to seek justice rather than convictions⁹⁰, should not place the desire for convictions ahead of the pursuit of unbiased testimony. Buying testimony with conditional leniency tips the scales of justice by inviting perjury.

The role of a prosecutor is a role which has duties to society, to the alleged victim, and to the defendant suspected of the crime:

https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/crime-prevention-criminal-justice/module-14/key-issues/2--general-issues--public-prosecutors-as-the-gate-keepers-of-criminal-justice.html

In criminal cases, prosecutors are responsible for representing not only the interests of society at large, but also those of victims of crimes. They also have duties to other individuals, including persons suspected of a crime and witnesses.

https://www.maricopacountyattorney.org/DocumentCenter/View/106/The-California-Prosecutor-Integrity-Independence-Leadership-PDF?bidId=

Prosecutors have a very unique role: Prosecutors represent society—all of the members of
society, including victims and defendants. In this regard, prosecutors have a duty to ensure
the fairness of criminal proceedings. The United States Supreme Court noted in Berger v.
United States:

"[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a
controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as
compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in
a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be
done."

Because of this role, the ethical standards imposed upon prosecutors are extraordinary;
prosecutorial misconduct is not tolerated.

[Roundy]

Yes, the deal is for truthful testimony, just like it is with all witnesses who flip, and truthful testimony must therefore be damaging to Trump, because otherwise the prosecution wouldn't be making deals  with these witnesses to testify to begin with. I don't think I can put it any more simply than that. The prosecution is not on Trump's side. They are not trying to help him. If they're asking people to testify and making deals with them to that effect, it's because their testimony will hurt Trump. That's how this works. That's how it's always worked. You're quibbling about a distinction without a difference.

That is how it is displayed in movies that prosecutors are against the defendant, but prosecutors are not meant to be on any one side of the case. Their duty is to truth and justice. See that previous sentence I quoted from Markjo's document on their duty:

Prosecutors, whose duty is to seek justice rather than convictions⁹⁰, should not place the desire for convictions ahead of the pursuit of unbiased testimony. Buying testimony with conditional leniency tips the scales of justice by inviting perjury.

The role of a prosecutor is a role which has duties to society, the alleged victim and the defendant suspected of the crime:

https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/crime-prevention-criminal-justice/module-14/key-issues/2--general-issues--public-prosecutors-as-the-gate-keepers-of-criminal-justice.html

In criminal cases, prosecutors are responsible for representing not only the interests of society at large, but also those of victims of crimes. They also have duties to other individuals, including persons suspected of a crime and witnesses.

https://www.maricopacountyattorney.org/DocumentCenter/View/106/The-California-Prosecutor-Integrity-Independence-Leadership-PDF?bidId=

Prosecutors have a very unique role: Prosecutors represent society—all of the members of
society, including victims and defendants. In this regard, prosecutors have a duty to ensure
the fairness of criminal proceedings. The United States Supreme Court noted in Berger v.
United States:

"[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a
controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as
compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in
a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be
done."

Because of this role, the ethical standards imposed upon prosecutors are extraordinary;
prosecutorial misconduct is not tolerated.

See what I mean? He doesn't want to understand. Y'all are just wasting time trying to help him see a point that he refuses to see. I know, it's sad that some people are willfully ignorant when the facts don't match the narrative they want to tell. But that's the world we live in and Tom's practically its poster boy.

[garygreen]

i've already explained this. of course everyone already has to testify truthfully. you're completely missing the point.

the value of the plea deal is not that the prosecutor can make you say certain things -- it's that the prosecutor can subpoena you to testify, which they cannot do if you are a defendant. if these folks don't plead out, then the prosecutor can't make them testify at all. it's not about making people say certain things.