Famed constitutional law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz sounded an alarm Wednesday evening regarding former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan case, in which he’s been charged with Class E felonies related to payments made to an adult film star and Playboy model ahead of the 2016 election.
Dershowitz cautioned that Trump has “no chance” of being acquitted in New York City, a liberal stronghold, in the unprecedented legal case brought against him by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
“There’s no way he can get a fair trial,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “I don’t care if Jesus, Muhammad, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thurgood Marshall defended Trump in New York, he wouldn’t win this case. Hung jury? Maybe. Acquittal? Never.”
Dershowitz made the comments after Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday, during which the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made in 2016.
Earlier, Dershowitz explained further that Trump’s case is particularly challenging.
“It reminds me of when I was a civil rights person in the South… even if you didn’t spit on the sidewalk, if the sheriff said you spit on the sidewalk and charged you with it, there’s no chance you could get acquitted by an all-White Jim Crow jury,” he said.
“Everybody knew that. You were innocent, but everyone knew you were going to be convicted,” he continued.
Dershowitz stated that he didn’t want to make a direct comparison between the Jim Crow era in the South and present-day New York City, but he noted that finding 12 impartial jurors in the city is extremely difficult.
“[They] don’t want to walk around town and have people say ‘That’s the juror who freed Donald Trump and allowed him to be president,'” he added.
According to Dershowitz, the judge presiding over Trump’s case shares a similar opinion, and is reluctant to move the trial to a more impartial location for fear of backlash.
Trump’s supporters have voiced concerns that selecting a jury from the Manhattan borough, which overwhelmingly voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, could give an unfair advantage to the prosecution. They argued that relocating the trial to Staten Island, which has a more conservative demographic, would be a fairer approach, Fox News reported.
“Any decent judge would change the venue immediately, but this judge won’t do that,” Dershowitz said. “Any decent judge would throw the case out on the statute of limitations. This judge won’t do it. He doesn’t want to ruin his career… Remember, judges in New York are elected.”
“Federal judges are more likely to rule in his favor because they have lifetime appointments,” he explained. “I don’t think a state court judge has the courage. I don’t think state court jurors have the courage [to acquit him].”
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