The delay is probably due to a juror’s illness and possibly due to gamesmanship.
The Carroll II trial of journalist E. Jean Carroll’s two remaining civil defamation claims against former President Donald Trump has been postponed again, this time to Thursday. As I related yesterday, the trial has not resumed this week because at least one juror is ill.
As the New York Times’ Ben Weiser reports, Judge Lewis Kaplan did not publicly announce a reason for pushing resumption of the trial back another day.
Nine jurors are seated for the trial, and federal rules require only six for a civil trial, so the judge could easily excuse an ailing juror and carry on. Given the open animosity between the former president and the judge, I believe Kaplan is being careful to show that Trump is being given a meaningful opportunity to testify.
When the former president has been disruptive in the courtroom, Kaplan has made it clear that he knows he is being baited. That is, because Kaplan has ruled, based on the verdict in Carroll I, that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, Trump has already lost the case as a legal matter (the ongoing trial is strictly about damages); ergo, Trump’s incentive is wholly political: provoke Kaplan into taking punitive measures that would fuel the Trump 2024 campaign theme that Democrats have weaponized the legal system against him.
Trump and his counsel have represented that Trump intends to testify. Assuming Trump follows through, it was anticipated that he would take the stand today — fresh off his victory in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. (Recall that he ended up declining to testify in his defense in the New York civil-fraud trial after signaling that he would do so. We are still awaiting Judge Arthur Engoron’s decision in that case.)
We’ll see if he testifies tomorrow, and if there are developments in the interim.