this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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[–] terribleplan@lemmy.nrd.li 50 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Clearly we need a "Saved You A Click" community... this article's title sucks and it takes way too long to get to the point.

The answer is 12.5 to 22 years.

For a defendant with no prior criminal convictions, an offense level of 37 yields 210 to 262 months (17 1/2 to almost 22 years). A defendant who accepted responsibility could reduce that range to 151 to 188 months if the prosecution agreed to deduct the third point.

[–] TechyDad@beehaw.org 13 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Given that Trump will never accept responsibility and given the horrible charges, he'd likely get closer to 20 years.

Even that would be a death sentence for him. To go from being used to luxury for 77 years to federal prison (even minimum security) would be a massive shock. And given his poor diet, I don't he'd live to be released when he's 97.

Of course, the other way Trump differs from any normal person who committed these offenses is that the normal person would be awaiting their trial from behind bars instead of posting on social media and holding rallies.

[–] Toast@lemmy.film 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Luxury? I think by now we've all seen his bathroom.

Put a chandelier in his cell and two scoops in his bowl and the dotard would probably think he is in charge of the joint. He'll be fine

[–] TechyDad@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

Okay "faux luxury."

Trump truly is a poor man's version of a rich man. (And a dumb man's version of a smart man and a weak man's version of a strong man.)

[–] Perdendosi@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Of course, the other way Trump differs from any normal person who committed these offenses is that the normal person would be awaiting their trial from behind bars instead of posting on social media and holding rallies.

Meh, probably not. Most non-violent offenders, even in the federal system, are released on bail (or a similar form of supervised release) prior to trial. No chance of reoffending since he'd not have access to new classified info. No real flight risk ((1) because he's too much of a narcissist, (2) because he's easily tracked).

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If he does go in how will it work with secret service as former presidents get "protection" for life? Are the agents going to be living in prison with him?

[–] TechyDad@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

I don't think anyone has a firm grasp on how this would work considering that no former President has ever gone to prison before. (Especially not since the Secret Service started protecting them.) We're in uncharted territory here.

[–] Hammy@lemmy.one 10 points 2 years ago

Jesus, thank you. That article rambled forever.

[–] A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com 13 points 2 years ago (3 children)

I think the most likely outcome is it will end in multiple hung juries because the US has a population of brainwashed pro-Trump sycophants who are going into this with a preset belief that it is political persecution.

Let's make some assumptions and model the chances mathematically:

  • Based on recent surveys, about 38% of the US-population believe that Trump is being persecuted. One might hope they might listen to the evidence and change their mind, but let's assume they don't, and so assume 38% will never vote to convict Trump no matter what evidence is presented. We'll assume this 38% is the same for the jury pool (in some local areas, maybe this is pessimistic, so if anyone has a more accurate assumption, perhaps the calculations could be re-run with that). We'll assume after hearing the evidence, the remaining 62% will vote to convict (this is not intended to pre-judge the result, but rather to show what will happen if the prosecution can present a strong and persuasive case against Trump).
  • Let's assume a jury of 12 people, but they go through the standard voir dire process where jurors are called sequentially in an order neither party controls, but the defence (but not the prosecution) can strike up to 10 jurors, until a jury of 12 is formed.
  • Let's assume Trump has perfect information about which jurors are in the 38% (they can find out who is registered as a Republican, read social media, ask questions jurors are compelled to answer, etc...), and will exercise strikes on anyone not in the 38% until they run out of strikes or 12 jurors are selected.
  • Let's assume 12 jurors need to vote unanimously to convict or to acquit. We'll assume that if neither vote happens, it is a hung jury, and that there can be at most 3 trials (2 retrials following hung juries) before it is untenable to re-prosecute.

Firstly, what is the chance of a complete acquittal? We can use the negative binomial distribution to calculate this. Let's consider the Voir Dire process, and define each juror being successively presented as a Bernoulli trial. We'll define success (to use standard Bernoulli trial terminology, no moral judgement implied) as the juror being from the 38% that are Trump sycophants, and failure as them being from the other population. The probability of 11 or fewer successes before at most 10 failures can be computed using the negative binomial CDF, nbinom.cdf(k=11, n=10, p=0.38), giving a probability of 24.5% of outright acquittal per trial.

But what about the chance of a conviction, i.e. selection of a jury of 12 from the 62%? Even with no voir dire, the binomial distribution gives us a probability of 0.003% of no Trump supporters being in a jury of 12, so the chance of there being none is vanishingly small.

However, apparently the prosecution gets 5 strikes. This is getting difficult to compute the distribution, so I simulated it instead, assuming that the prosecution use on of their 5 strikes, until they run out, and the defence use on of their 10 strikes, until they run out. The result (from 10,000 simulated trials) was 96.6% ended in mistrial, 2.54% convicted, and 0.85% acquitted.

Once we factor in up to two retrials following a hung jury mistrial, it comes out as 90.28% never get a result, 7.45% get a conviction, and 2.27% end in him being acquitted.

However, it is quite sensitive to population differences. If he is tried in an area with a low population of sycophant potential jurors (26% instead of 38%) it comes out at a 59% chance of a guilty verdict across the retrials. If Trump sycophants are more likely to be jurors and make up 45% of the pool, then there is only a 1% chance of a conviction.

[–] Svengarlic@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

Thank you for this exhaustive investigation!

[–] DeceptiKHAAAN@startrek.website 1 points 2 years ago

Lordy, that's depressing.

[–] Toast@lemmy.film 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

He better hope that his cult continues to love him, then. Remember how quickly they turned on Bush? I'm not saying that they had the same relationship with Bush; I'm just saying that crowds are fickle things.

If they start seeing him as a loser, he might be in real trouble

[–] radix@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago

https://www.serioustrouble.show/p/big-boy-federal-felonies

Skip to 26:15 to get to the discussion of this number, but tl;dl, 5-10 years minimum, and there are plenty of factors that could increase that.

[–] Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org 3 points 2 years ago

I didn't even read the article because the headline sucks and I'm suspecting it's one of these where it adds up the years for each charge. However, sentences for these things are usually served concurrently as opposed to consecutively.

But the real answer is that if it's anything over 10 years it's basically a life sentence for him, which is just fine with me.

On a side note, what a self own. All he had to do was give the documents back when asked and not lie to his own lawyers. But I guess asking him not to lie is a pretty tall order.

[–] cjones666@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

I’m a cynical bastard and Trump is rich and powerful. So my predicted outcome will most likely be parole or some form of house arrest where he can lay around all day and moan on social media about witch hunts or something.

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

I know it would never happen, but just thinking about him getting 20+ years brings a smile to my face. It’s too bad that throwing him into a flaming bronze bull and sacrificing him to Baal isn’t an option.