Archive for the ‘Fifth Amendment’ Category

Utah high court rules suspects don’t have to provide police with phone passcodes – The Record from Recorded Future News

The Utah Supreme Court ruled Thursday in favor of a defendant who had argued police could not force him to provide the passcode to his phone in order to aid their prosecution.

The states highest court concluded that cell phone passcodes are protected under the Fifth Amendment, which gives Americans the right not to self-incriminate under oath.

The defendant, Alfonso Margo Valdez, had been accused of kidnapping, assaulting and robbing his ex-girlfriend and was initially convicted for the crime.

Subsequently an appellate court ruled that having determined that Valdezs refusal to provide his passcode was protected by the Fifth Amendment the States commentary at trial on Valdezs refusal was a Fifth Amendment violation, according to a characterization from the justices.

The state Supreme Court upheld that ruling, sending the case back to the district court.

Some legal scholars believe Thursdays decision could pave the way to a U.S. Supreme Court case.

UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Orin Kerr posted on social media about the ruling soon afterward, predicting possible U.S. Supreme Court review.

The issue has been controversial with courts splitting nationwide. High courts in Indiana and Pennsylvania previously came to a similar decision as the Utah justices, ruling that compelling defendants to unlock their phone violates their right against self-incrimination. However, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Illinois rulings have held the opposite.

Valdez was convicted in his initial trial, but appealed on the grounds that his phones passcode was constitutionally protected. The appellate court sided with Valdez, saying that supplying the passcode would have been incriminating because it has long been settled that the Fifth Amendments self-incrimination protection encompasses compelled statements that lead to the discovery of incriminating evidence even though the statements themselves are not incriminating and are not introduced into evidence.

The state Supreme Court backed that argument.

Civil rights groups filed an amicus brief in the case, arguing that the State cannot compel a suspect to recall and share information that exists only in his mind.

The realities of the digital age only magnify the concerns that animate the Fifth Amendments protections, the brief said. In accordance with these principles, the Court of Appeals held that communicating a memorized passcode is testimonial, and thus the States use at trial of Mr. Valdezs refusal to do so violated his privilege against self-incrimination.

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Suzanne Smalley is a reporter covering privacy, disinformation and cybersecurity policy for The Record. She was previously a cybersecurity reporter at CyberScoop and Reuters. Earlier in her career Suzanne covered the Boston Police Department for the Boston Globe and two presidential campaign cycles for Newsweek. She lives in Washington with her husband and three children.

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Utah Supreme Court says accused don’t have to share cellphone passwords with police – Salt Lake Tribune

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Supreme Court Justice Paige Petersen asks a question during oral arguments at the Utah Supreme Court in Salt Lake City, Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. On Thursday, justices decided that individuals do not need to share their cellphone passcodes with police.

| Dec. 15, 2023, 1:00 p.m.

| Updated: 8:35 p.m.

If police obtain a warrant to search your cellphone, are you required to tell law enforcement the password to access it?

The Utah Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that under the U.S. Constitutions Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, you dont have to help law enforcement access your devices, even if they have a judges permission to do so.

Nearly two years after the court first heard arguments in the case, with attorneys rehashing those arguments in March after two new justices joined the bench, the court agreed with the Utah Court of Appeals 2021 decision to reverse a conviction in an aggravated assault, kidnapping and robbery case.

When Alfonso Valdez was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and assaulting his ex-girlfriend, police took his cell phone from his pocket, according to court records. Detectives got a warrant, but could not crack the swipe code to sift through the phones contents.

An officer asked Valdez to help unlock the phone, but he refused, keeping law enforcement from ever accessing it.

Prosecutors later relied on testimony from a detective about Valdezs decision not to cooperate with police, and when giving closing arguments, argued that the resulting lack of evidence undermined his defense. A jury convicted Valdez, and he appealed.

The states two highest courts reasoned that Valdez agreeing to tell law enforcement his password could have amounted to self-incrimination, and he had a constitutional right not to do so.

We agree with the court of appeals that verbally providing a cellphone passcode is a testimonial communication under the Fifth Amendment, Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the decision. All justices on the court joined the opinion except former appeals court judge Justice Jill Pohlman, who recused herself and was replaced by District Court Judge John Walton.

During arguments in front of the Utah Supreme Court, attorneys for the state asserted that Valdezs refusal to share his swipe code was not protected under the Fifth Amendment because they said it could be compared to providing officers with a key, and was not semantic in nature.

Building off of that contention, the state said a passcode wouldnt have given police any meaningful information, except what they already knew the phone belonged to Valdez.

But the court dismissed those points in its decision, with Petersen writing, Here, we have a verbal communication that would have explicitly communicated information from Valdezs mind.

A spokesperson for the Utah Attorney Generals office said in an email, The office is disappointed in the courts ruling and is evaluating options for further review.

Attorneys representing Valdez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While the Utah Supreme Court has the final say on matters related to the state constitution, this decision could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court because of its focus on a right enshrined in the federal constitution. The high court would then determine whether it wants to hear the case.

Matthew Tokson, a law professor at the University of Utah whose work focuses on privacy and judicial decision-making, said the ruling helps to preserve Utahns privacy in their cellphones against government investigations. Whatever is in your cell phone, if its sufficiently protected by your passcode, is likely to be safe from inspection, and your refusal to open your cellphone for inspection cant be held against you.

Similar Fifth Amendment reasoning likely wouldnt apply to other phone access technologies, like Face ID or Touch ID. Tokson said for that reason, he has personally opted not to sign into his devices with biometric identifiers.

He added, however, that such a precedent may make criminal investigations more difficult by preventing the government from accessing pertinent information, even with probable cause and a warrant.

In the future, case law surrounding the Fifth Amendment and law enforcements technology use, Tokson noted, could impact questions that may arise as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated in reading emotions, for example and widely used.

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Utah Supreme Court says accused don't have to share cellphone passwords with police - Salt Lake Tribune

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High court must uphold constitutional taking clause to protect … – The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

This is a story about a rather unassuming 32-inch high concrete retaining wall in southeast Texas.

The wall is the creation of the Texas Department of Transportation. As part of updating I-10, an east-west federal highway between Houston and Beaumont, TxDOT had an idea. An awful idea.

A wonderful, AWFUL idea.

Those Texas grinchy geniuses wanted to ensure emergency vehicles could drive on I-10 should the countryside flood. And so they raised the height of I-10 by 18 inches and built a 32-inch high concrete barrier smack dab down the middle of the road so that eastbound lanes remained navigable should disaster strike.

Where I come from we call that a dam.

And of course Mother Nature put the dam to the test. Hello Hurricane Harvey. The Category 4 hurricane made landfall on Aug. 25, 2017, deluging a 20-mile stretch from Winnie to the Trinity River. On the eastbound side of the I-10 concrete barrier, vehicles went zippity-do-da hither and yon.

On the west side of the barrier a lake emerged running as far as three miles north of I-10. In short, the concrete barrier worked exactly as TxDOT intended and designed.

Except located in that Hurricane Harvey manmade floodplain were houses and farms. Doh! Which begs the question: What in blue blazes was Texas thinking?

Among those people whose houses were flooded is Richie Devillier. His home and 900-acre farm were destroyed by floods thanks to the I-10 dam. Devillier was digging his way out of that mess when, in a cant-believe-its-happening-again moment, Tropical Storm Imeldas September 2019 arrival flooded Devilliers farm a second time. Crops destroyed. Dead cattle. Twenty-three inches of water.

Reasonably, Devillier asked the state of Texas for financial relief. And how much did Devillier receive? Not. One. Red. Cent. Bupkis. Its your farm. You pay for it.

Tired of the run-around from Texas bureaucrats, Devillier sued in state court under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, claiming Texas barrier was designed to serve as a retaining wall to store storm water on his private property without consent or compensation.

Make no mistake about it. Devillier had a case that Texas was very likely to lose at least as long as the case remained in state court. But just days after Devillier filed his lawsuit, the state of Texas submitted their own petition asking the case be moved from state to federal courts.

Excuse me while we get a little deep into the weeds here regarding the Fifth Amendment. A number of appellate courts have ruled that the Fifth Amendment is self-executing. Thats to say a property owner can sue a state directly for taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. No controlling law is required.

By moving the case from state to federal court, Texas is attempting to change the rules. In federal court, takings lawsuits are controlled by 42 U.S.C. 1983:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officers judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

Texas is attempting to game the system. Texas argued it is not a person. Thus Devillier cant bring a claim under Section 1983. Its a classic catch-22.

United States magistrate Judge Andrew M. Edison was tasked with making recommendations to the federal district court and saw through the Texas fairy dust:

This thinking eviscerates hundreds of years of Constitutional law in one fell swoop, and flies in the face of commonsense. It is pretzel logic. There is not, as the State suggests, some sort of state exception that excludes state governments from the reach of the Fifth Amendments Takings Clause. The complete opposite is true.

The federal district court by and large adopted Edisons thinking and denied Texass motion, ruling private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.

But then Texas appealed and the Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court, ruling Texas indeed wasnt a person and, thus, there was no federal cause of action to sue for takings. In other words, inverse condemnation claims cannot proceed directly under the Fifth Amendment in the absence of a Section 1983 course of action.

Now the whole mess has ended up in the lap of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to take up the case.

The case has huge implications. Hands up for those in favor of having their property taken without just compensation. Someone? Anyone? I think not.

The Fifth Circuit has it wrong, wrong, wrong. The Fifth Amendment does indeed create a direct cause of action. The right to just compensation is right there in the takings clause. The high court need not do more than summarily reverse the Fifth Circuit and uphold the district court.

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High court must uphold constitutional taking clause to protect ... - The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting

Jump Crypto chief pled Fifth over alleged backroom Do Kwon deal – Protos

Recently unsealed documents reveal that Jump Crypto president Kanav Kariya pled the Fifth when asked about an alleged backdoor bribe made with Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon back in 2021, in an attempt to re-peg stablecoin TerraUSD (UST).

According to the SEC, Kariya and now-imprisoned Kwon agreed in May 2021 that Jump Crypto would manipulate the price of UST in exchange for amendments to the terms of Jumps LUNA loan agreement. In February, sources familiar with the case told reporters that Jump Crypto made $1.28 billion dollars in profit from Kwons now-decimated crypto empire.

And when you asked Do Kwon to lift the vesting conditions in exchange for Jumps agreement to buy up UST to restore the peg, Do Kwon agreed to that, correct? SEC counsel Devon Staren asked Kariya in court on August 18.

On the instruction of counsel I exercise my rights under the Fifth Amendment and decline to answer the question at this time, Kariya replied (via Blockworks). The Jump Crypto president pled the Fifth a total of nine times, according to his recently unsealed deposition.

Read more: Jump Crypto profited from Terra Luna as investors lost billions

The SECs ongoing case against Kwon and Terraform Labs alleges that they violated securities laws and defrauded investors. Both the SEC and the defense have filed for summary judgement while Kwons lawyers believe the case should forego a trial by jury because the SEC has failed to prove its clients broke the law, the commission has asked for swift judgement because the alleged fraud and sale of securities is clear, undisputed, and overwhelming.

Kariya was deposed at the end of August for his alleged involvement. Kwon was a fugitive until his arrest in Montenegro, where he is currently serving time in prison after local courts found him guilty of document forgery. He awaits extradition.

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Donald Trump civil trial in Manhattan: Maybe he’s not trying to win … – Slate

Were six weeks into the first of Donald Trumps trials. His adult children have testified. The former president has testified. The prosecution is resting. And now, his defense is up to bat.Trump has four high-profile criminal cases coming up, but this trial is a civil one. New York Attorney General Letitia James says Trump and his adult sons inflated the value of their properties to lenders and insurance companies. Thats fraud. And not just a little fraud.

The claims are that they inflated these assets wildly, sometimes to a factor of 23, said Barbara McQuade, who is a law professor at the University of Michigan and a former U.S. attorney for Michigans Eastern District.

Prosecutors questioned Trumps sons, Don Jr. and Eric, who are co-defendants in this case. Ivanka Trump also testified, though shes legally off the hook, since she left the family business in 2017. But the most explosive testimony came from their father, the former president. Its important to know that the judge already ruled that Trump and his co-defendants were liable for fraudon at least one count. So now whats at stake is the punishment. The judge could order Trump to pay a hefty fine and could ban him from doing business in New York.

So when Trump spent four hours answering prosecutors questions, it got ugly.

I thought Donald Trumps outbursts against the judge were truly remarkable, McQuade said. He said on the stand how the prosecutor is a hack and how the judge is biased and unfair.At one point, the judge asked Trumps lawyer, Could you please get your client under control? The response was, I will not violate my clients First Amendment rights, which is such an absurd response. In the courtroom, theres no First Amendment right to say whatever you want to say. Youre under oath to answer questions truthfully.

Trumps testimony this week could also give us an indication of how he may act in the four criminal cases ahead of him.

This is really all just a performance for Donald Trump. This is a show to provide a false narrative to his supporters that he is a victim, that he is being railroaded by prosecutors in the courts, and that he will continue to show that he is above the law, McQuade said. I think he anticipates that he will lose this case. And this way when he loses, he will be able to say to his supporters, See, I told you all along they had it in for me. It really does make me wonder whether he wont use the same strategy in one or more of his trials. Maybe all four of them.

On Thursdays episode of What Next, we dove into the trials of Donald Trump. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Yasmeen Khan: Before Donald Trump took the stand earlier this week, you tweeted that it was a lawyers nightmare scenariothat Trump needed to explain his fraud allegations without committing perjury. Did he do that?

Barbara McQuade: I dont know what the truth is here, but if you look at the evidence as alleged in the very detailed complaint filed by the attorney general that talks about these overstatements of value of properties. And then he comes in and testifies that those numbers were low. I think he lacks credibility when he answers questions that way. And when a judge makes a finding about whether the statements of financial worth were overstated, I think theyre going to find, based on the evidence, that they were. Does that amount to perjury? I think he will defend himself by saying that thats his genuine belief.

Why would Trump testify at all? I understand the need to grandstand, or that hes talking to a different audience other than whos in court. But he does have something to lose. So what does he have to gain exactly by testifying?

Hes not testifying voluntarily. He was called as a witness by the attorney general. Now, he does have an option, which is to, on a question-by-question basis, invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. And in fact, at his deposition in this case, he did exactly thathundreds of times. But in this forum, he probably calculated that invoking the Fifth Amendment so publicly would be a bad look for someone whos running for president. Unlike a criminal case, where the fact that you invoke your Fifth Amendment right cant be used against you in any way, in a civil case, the judge can draw whats called an adverse inference against you. And so, the judge could assume that because he declined to answer the question, the answer would have been bad for him.

The former president has repeatedly shown up to court to sit in on the trial, even though hes not required to. And again, hes also facing four criminal trials. Its fair to say hes enraged by all of the cases. Why do you think hes been so involved in this one and so clearly livid by it?

I imagine that his whole identity is tied up in these properties and in his public persona as one of the richest people in the world. And this case threatens to undermine that appearance. So, he is there fighting hard, and he is also there to create this circuslike atmosphere. He probably did what he wanted to do, which was concede defeat in this civil case and fire up the strategy on appeal that this judge had it in for him, but preserving his reputation in the court of public opinion. He believes that these numbers are right. And you cant prove that he believed he was wrong. That was the calculus. And if thats the strategy, then he probably succeeded.

Much of Trumps testimony revolved around defending his alleged wealth, saying that his properties are actually undervalued, that theyre worth is far greater than whats even in his financial statements, the same statements that hes accused of fraudulently inflating. So what does it indicate to you that he appears to be doubling down in this way?

Doubling down is really the only way Donald Trump can save face here and say to his voters, I did nothing wrong. Theyre out to get me. Its a witch hunt. But just to demonstrate the absurdity of this: One of his properties was overvalued by a factor of 23, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Certainly there is some room for differences of opinion in the valuation of real estate. Say, for example, you owned a home that was valued at $100,000 and you get different appraisers. Maybe some say its $90,000, maybe some say its $110,000. But no one would believe that the value of that $100,000 home is $2.3 million. Thats the kind of escalation were seeing here. And so for Trump to come in and say, Oh, its accurate, or In some instances its actually undervalued, or They failed to take into account the value the Trump brand name adds, is really ludicrous.

His sons, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, basically both testified that they deferred to their accountants, that they werent really directly involved in putting together the financial statements for the company.The former president seemed to contradict some of that in his testimony. At one point, he said, I would look at financial statements, I would see them, and I would maybe on occasion have some suggestions.

Its important that he says he did look at them. The idea that any of these three, by the way, werent paying attention to these numbers when they were being inflated, in at least one instance, by a factor of 23 strikes me as unusual. Certainly, accountants do their work. They pull together numbers, and then they would have a final signoff. If they are not looking at the numbers, theyre not doing their jobs. They had high-level positions in the company, and theres a reason they have to sign off on them. If all they did was completely defer to the accountants, there would be no reason for them to have to sign off on them.

Trump, on the other hand, wants to maintain the veneer that hes this hands-on businessman. And so for him to admit, I dont really look at the numbers, I just rely on the accountants, would be an admission he just couldnt live with. So, he tried to walk a fine line there.

His defense more was, Yes, I looked at them because they were right. And if anything, they were undervalued. And then his other line of defense is that the banks dont care anyway, and its their job to do their due diligence. And if they thought there was something wrong with them, they should have said so. That, as a matter of law, the judge has already rejected. That is victim blaming. The reason you have to attest to a value is because it matters. It is a material representation. There are other borrowers out there who correctly assessed their worth, and as a result they didnt get loans that you got. So, there was a competitive advantage obtained by the Trump Organization by misrepresenting these things.

On Monday, Trump rested after testifying for four hours, and the defense didnt cross-examine him. Why not?

There might be two reasons for that. One is: If I were his lawyer, I would just be so relieved to get him off the stand and be done. Stop talking before you say something that is prosecutable. If you cross-examine him, it also opens him up to redirect by the attorney generals office. So, they may not want him to have to open his mouth again. The other reason is if they do want to use him as a witness in their defense, they can do that in their own case. They dont need to just cross-examine him now, which limits them to the scope of the direct questions.

Im not surprised by Donald Trumps belligerent speech. Because thats what we expect from him, at least in political spheres. But are you surprised that its happening in a court of law and that it could repeat in criminal cases?

I am surprised to see him use this belligerent tone in court, but perhaps I shouldnt be. Donald Trump has shown us who he is for a long time, but Ive never seen anything like it. Certainly from time to time a witness might get irritated by a question thats asked by the prosecutor and might lose their temper a little bit. But typically, their lawyer will call for a break and calm them down and try to get them to answer the questions. But with Trump, his supporters like it that hes sticking it to the man. And so maybe that kind of strategy can work for him at trial.

Something thats been very glaring in this trial is that both Trump and his attorneys have repeatedly criticized the judge. And on Monday, Trump attorney Alina Habba suggested that the judge had decided the case before we even walked up the stairs.This is a bench trial. The judge is the only person making a ruling here. What do you make of this decision to repeatedly attack the judge?

Ive never heard anything like this, with the statements that she made about how the judge is bullying her and being mean to her. Judges own their courtrooms. They get to call the shots in the courtroom. So, to complain about it usually falls on deaf ears. But to go outside while the case is pending and say these things publicly is just absolutely unheard of, especially because the judge still has to decide the case. It really just supports that theory that shes more about winning the PR battle than she is about winning the case.

Trumps team hasnt just targeted the judge. Theyve also gone after his clerk, Allison Greenfield. And the attacks on Greenfield are what prompted the judge to issue multiple gag orders against Trump. Who is Greenfield, and why is she being targeted?

The only reason that Greenfield is being targeted is because of this photo that she posted on social media depicting her with Chuck Schumer. I dont think theres anything wrong with someone posing in a photo with the senator for their state. But the Trump team pounced on this as an opportunity to portray her as a Democrat and someone who is biased against the case. I dont know that theres any real basis to suggest that she is unfair or that she even has any influence in the case as the law clerk. A law clerk has a job to serve the judge, to help the judge in court, to do research when the judge needs it, to look things up on the computer when the judge needs it, to pass notes about the case. And so I think the Trump team has exploited this photo to suggest that theres something improper here about the role of the clerk, that she is somehow pulling the puppet strings and that she is part of this deep state operation that is hosting this witch hunt for Donald Trump.

The whole thing about the notes. Theyve taken issue with the fact that a law clerk would pass notes to the judge. That has stood out as very bizarre to me.

Sometimes lawyers will exploit the information gap that exists between laypeople and people who spend a lot of time in court. Ive seen lawyers, for example, say, In my 40 years of practicing law, this is the most outrageous thing Ive ever seen. And you think to yourself, Are you kidding me? This goes on all the time. But jurors dont know that. And so, you start seeing them nodding along that somethings outrageous when its incredibly routine. And so the same thing, this idea of a clerk passing notes to the judge, I suppose if someone has not been in court before, they may not realize that. And so to the extent they hear Trumps lawyers saying this and getting outraged about it and putting it on the record, it may carry some weight with them. They may see that as evidence of improper behavior. When anybody whos ever spent a minute in court knows that clerks do that all the time. Sometimes they whisper in their ear. Its gamesmanship and an affront to the rule of law.

So far, the judge has issued two gag orders against Trump and his attorneys. Trump has been fined roughly $15,000 for violating these orders. How common are these types of gag orders?

Not common. Sometimes in a very high-profile case, a judge might blanketly put a gag order in place against both parties because they dont want the case to be tried in the press; they want it to be tried in the courtroom. This case is a little different because Donald Trump is running for president. And judges in all of his cases have been really reluctant to be too restrictive in preventing him from talking about the cases. But here, when they went after his clerk, I think that really upset him because a clerk is not a person who seeks fame, who seeks to be well-known, but they are really essential to the proper functioning of the court. And we have seen sometimes when Donald Trump casts aspersions on people, they become targets. So, the judge has made it a point not to make statements about his staff in an effort to protect them. But its really highly unusual that you would have to enter an order for singling out staff. Ive never seen a party or a lawyer go after staff like that before.

So the prosecution rests this week. Do you think that theyve proved their case?

Well, Ive always been reluctant to make a decision about a case when I havent been in the courtroom because we see reporting, but we dont see every single statement. What we really see is the more interesting and the more explosive moments, like the Trump brothers and Donald Trump himself testifying. I dont know that any of those three really moved the needle at all either way. This case is largely a documents case. Regardless of the baggage that he has, Michael Cohens testimony is going to be persuasive, where he says, They asked me to reverse-engineer the numbers. And so when we gave those numbers to the accountants, they were inflated. From outside appearances, it looks like they have proved their case. But again, Im reluctant to really make a representation because unlike the judge who has seen every minute of this case, heard every word of testimony, I have had to rely on whats reported in the press to do that.

Get more news from Mary Harris every weekday.

Given what weve discussed about Trump possibly using this trial as a PR move, if the judge indeed rules against Donald Trump, how big of a blow would it be to him, do you think?

Hes got the appeal thats left. Well see that come next. But if he were to lose on appeal and lose his properties, not only would he have to pay $250 million, which is a significant amount of money, but hed have to remove his name from all of these properties. Itd be a big blow for him. His father had a real estate empire, but it was limited to Queens. And getting into Manhattan, which is considered the fancy, sophisticated part of New York, has always been a big part of his image. And so I think it would be very humbling for him to lose those properties and lose the ability to do business in Manhattan.

He did testify at one point that he became president because of my brand.So it seems that a great deal of his identity is at stake.

A huge part of his persona is all about his brand. Think about the show The Apprentice, where he created this image of himself, only betterof being wealthy and a decisive businessman. It certainly obscured all of his failed ventures, like his casinos and his university. His name on these big splashy buildings is very much a part of his identity as uber-successful businessman that propelled himself to the presidency, a self-made billionaire who started with only millions from his father. It would be a real blow to his carefully crafted persona.

Trump has four more trials coming up. Criminal trials. Assuming he takes the same belligerent and even rule-breaking tone, what does this case tell us about what we can expect for those other cases to come?

This case tells us that we should expect four circuses to come, that Donald Trump will not go quietly, that he will not be like most litigants and follow the rules. That he will work to blow it up. Thats been his MO from the start. Hes a disrupter. And he will do everything he can to disrupt the even administration of justice. And all of those prosecutors need to be prepared to deal with that.

In this civil case in New York, money is the punishment. Brand identity, and potential loss of that, is a punishment. But in those other cases, prison time is on the table. Could that force Donald Trump to try a different strategy?

He seems to have one strategy, which is to always be on the offensive. It seems to have worked for him most of his life. And my guess is he wont change that strategy now. For him, the best defense is a good offense, and I think were going to continue to see that.

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Donald Trump civil trial in Manhattan: Maybe he's not trying to win ... - Slate