Dershowitz: Trump Could Take Appeal to SCOTUS

Plus: What I'm Reading This Week

In Today’s BRIGHT

Dershowitz: Trump Could Take Appeal to SCOTUS
What I’m Reading This Week
Substack Spotlight: DA Bragg Contorted the Law
Speaker Not Impressed by Biden’s ‘Too Little Too Late’ Border EO
More Weekend Reads
A Case of the Mondays

Dershowitz: Trump Could Take Appeal to SCOTUS

The Epoch Times reported that retired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz suggests former President Donald Trump could expedite his appeal process to reach the U.S. Supreme Court before the 2024 presidential election. While standard procedure requires exhausting all state appeals, Dershowitz proposes bypassing the New York Appellate Division and directly petitioning the New York Court of Appeals for an expedited review.

More from The Epoch Times:

Mr. Dershowitz said that Trump attorneys should consider supporting their petition to the New York Court of Appeals by highlighting two issues, with the first relating to the fact that the state’s highest court recently reversed Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction because the trial judge prejudicially allowed testimony on allegations unrelated to the case.

The retired law professor alleged that Judge Juan Merchan “improperly” allowed irrelevant salacious details of President Trump’s alleged tryst with Ms. Daniels to be admitted into the record, while also raising the so-called “missing witness” issue.

The second point that Mr. Dershowitz said would bolster a petition for an expedited review to the New York Court of Appeals is that the judge allegedly didn’t instruct the jury properly on why prosecutors didn’t call former Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg to testify in the case. The judge was open to having Mr. Weisselberg testify but the prosecution didn’t call him, framing him as an unreliable witness due to earlier perjury charges in an unrelated case, while the defense also didn’t call him, citing the fact that prosecutors had undermined his credibility.

Mr. Dershowitz argued that failure to call Mr. Weisselberg left a hole in proving the case because it was expected that his testimony would have undermined some of the claims from another witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who testified against the former president.

Other legal experts doubt the Supreme Court will intervene early. Senior Legal Fellow of The Heritage Foundation, Hans von Spakovsky, said, “There are certainly issues that give the Supreme Court jurisdiction over the state court conviction, given the fundamental violation of Donald Trump’s substantive due process rights under the U.S. Constitution in the way the trial judge and prosecution mishandled the case. But I don’t believe the Supreme Court will take the case until the state appeals process is exhausted.”

RELATED: I hope voter registration superstar Scott Presler and others are setting up a table at UFC matches soon! — Trump receives thunderous applause at UFC 302 (Fox News)

What I’m Reading This Week

Long-time BRIGHT readers may remember this feature. I have been slacking on my book reading, so I’m back on Goodreads to take the Book Challenge again this year.

This week, I’m back on the wagon with You Can’t Screw This Up: Why Eating Takeout, Enjoying Dessert, and Taking the Stress Out of Dieting Leads to Weight Loss That Lasts by Adam Bornstein. I’ve had it for a few months now after seeing Ethan Suplee interview the author on his podcast. From the description:

The diet industry is great at making you follow more diets, not making you leave dieting behind. You don't need another restrictive, unrealistic plan; you need tools that help you enjoy what you eat (including takeout!) and be healthier at the same time.
…

In this easy-to-follow book, Bornstein shows how upgrading your health and losing weight for good requires you to turn your back on the typical dieting culture by following successful habits and frameworks not typically seen in nutrition and fitness.