NYT oped:

When it came to the New York prosecution of Donald Trump, I was skeptical.

I was among the commentators who criticized the case. It was old, the so-called zombie case that had been kicking around for years. It appeared to rest on several untested and controversial legal theories. It seemed like a relatively trivial bookkeeping charge, unworthy of a prosecution of a former president.

But I have to hand it to the Manhattan prosecutors. Over the course of this trial, they convinced me — as they clearly and overwhelmingly convinced the jury. There will be an appeal, of course, and Mr. Trump may have some persuasive legal arguments.

But the jury’s quick decision reinforces the district attorney’s view that this was a righteous prosecution and about much more than mere accounting entries…

I think the prosecutors took a tough case and put on a seamless, coherent and persuasive presentation. But I also think that even the prosecutors, if they were being candid, would agree they got an assist.

The defense case, like Churchill’s infamous pudding, had no theme. The defense didn’t have to prove anything, but Mr. Trump’s lawyers failed to suggest any coherent, alternative explanation of events that might have raised a reasonable doubt in the minds of one or more jurors.

The defense might have had a shot with a targeted argument, admitting to an indiscretion with Ms. Daniels and the hush-money payment but insisting that the state had failed to prove that Mr. Trump knew his company’s internal bookkeeping documents were false or that he caused them to be made with intent to cover up another crime….

In presiding over the case, Justice Juan Merchan largely accepted the prosecution’s legal theories. Within that legal framework, the prosecutors did a great job presenting their case, just as the judge did in handling the trial. But I think some of those legal theories are potentially vulnerable.

There are questions about the proper meaning of intent to defraud under New York law, and whether that standard could be met by these internal documents. There’s a potential issue with using a federal campaign finance law as the basis for turning a state misdemeanor into a felony. This case raised these and other novel questions, and the defense will now have a chance to argue those questions before a higher court….

The WSJ has owned this story from the beginning. And this inside look at the tips that led to yesterday’s historic conviction of a former president is a must-read. Riveting.

KC Star:

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that voting is not a fundamental right protected by the Kansas Constitution. The landmark decision on voting rights Friday is likely to weaken legal challenges to future voting restrictions in Kansas.

The majority opinion reversed a 2023 appeals court decision that recognized any restrictions on the fundamental right to vote would be subject to the highest legal bar for evaluation, or strict scrutiny. Justice Caleb Stegall wrote for the majority, saying voting is instead a “political right” under the Kansas Constitution that has a lower bar for regulation than fundamental rights. “But just because the right to vote is not protected in our Bill of Rights does not mean that constitutional voting guarantees are somehow weak or ineffective,” Stegall wrote. “Quite the contrary.” Stegall wrote that for a voting law or regulation to be found unconstitutional, it must pass the “Butts test,” which means “the law must be shown to unreasonably burden the right to suffrage.” If voting were found to be a fundamental right, the burden would be on the government to show new voting laws or regulations are narrowly tailored and necessary to achieve a compelling state interest. Three justices wrote dissenting opinions, arguing the majority opinion overturns longstanding case law and will have wide-ranging consequences for voting rights in Kansas….

The Kansas Legislature passed three such voting laws in 2021 that were challenged by the League of Women Voters, Loud Light and other civic groups, who claimed the laws violated the right to free speech, stifled the right to vote, and violated the constitutional guarantees of equal protections and due process. One law would make it a felony to impersonate an election official. Another would add new signature matching requirements for absentee ballots. The court’s 96-page opinion ruled these laws did not inhibit free speech nor did they place additional qualifications for voters to meet. Both were sent back to lower courts. A third law, which was upheld by the court, restricts the number of absentee ballots that could be delivered on the behalf of others to 10. The Supreme Court opened the door for a lower court to block the state from enforcing the false representation of an election official law. The lower court originally decided against blocking it.

Bolts reports.

Elie Honig in New York:

Most importantly, the DA’s charges against Trump push the outer boundaries of the law and due process. That’s not on the jury. That’s on the prosecutors who chose to bring the case and the judge who let it play out as it did.

The district attorney’s press office and its flaks often proclaim that falsification of business records charges are “commonplace” and, indeed, the office’s “bread and butter.” That’s true only if you draw definitional lines so broad as to render them meaningless. Of course the DA charges falsification quite frequently; virtually any fraud case involves some sort of fake documentation.

But when you impose meaningful search parameters, the truth emerges: The charges against Trump are obscure, and nearly entirely unprecedented. In fact, no state prosecutor — in New York, or Wyoming, or anywhere — has ever charged federal election laws as a direct or predicate state crime, against anyone, for anything. None. Ever. Even putting aside the specifics of election law, the Manhattan DA itself almost never brings any case in which falsification of business records is the only charge.

Standing alone, falsification charges would have been mere misdemeanors under New York law, which posed two problems for the DA. First, nobody cares about a misdemeanor, and it would be laughable to bring the first-ever charge against a former president for a trifling offense that falls within the same technical criminal classification as shoplifting a Snapple and a bag of Cheetos from a bodega. Second, the statute of limitations on a misdemeanor — two years — likely has long expired on Trump’s conduct, which dates to 2016 and 2017.

So, to inflate the charges up to the lowest-level felony (Class E, on a scale of Class A through E) — and to electroshock them back to life within the longer felony statute of limitations — the DA alleged that the falsification of business records was committed “with intent to commit another crime.” Here, according to prosecutors, the “another crime” is a New York State election-law violation, which in turn incorporates three separate “unlawful means”: federal campaign crimes, tax crimes, and falsification of still more documents. Inexcusably, the DA refused to specify what those unlawful means actually were — and the judge declined to force them to pony up — until right before closing arguments. So much for the constitutional obligation to provide notice to the defendant of the accusations against him in advance of trial. (This, folks, is what indictments are for.)

In these key respects, the charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else.