Georgia Prosecutor Fani Willis' Court Filing Shows She's Overmatched, As She Makes Ridiculous Misstatements of Georgia Procedural Law

If Sent to Federal Court, Such Filings Will Be Laughed Out of Court -- and Maybe Sanctioned

There was a filing earlier in the week by the prosecution in the Georgia case against former President Trump and eighteen co-defendants concerning their rights to timely production of discovery, and the impact of the speedy trial motion made Defendants Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell. The filing includes citations to Georgia Appeals Court decisions on a variety of “procedural” issues.

I do not pretend to be an authority on Georgia state procedural law, but there seems to be a process whereby defendants — usually charged with relatively minor offenses based on the limited number of cases I have read — can opt to put the prosecution to the task of putting on its case at trial in a very short time frame. Several cases I read have the time between indictment and trial as under 30 calendar days — way under 30 days in a few case. The tactic seems to be employed where the defense believes the evidence is weak, availability of witnesses might be in question, or the defendant has a rock-solid alibi likely to lead to acquittal so why drag things out. Failure of the government to bring the case to trial results in an outright acquittal on the merits.

Two defendants in the Trump case have filed to exercise their rights to a “speedy trial” under Georgia Law — Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell. I’m not going to speculate in this article on what the internal tactical calculation was on their part in doing so, nor am I quite certain at this point how the pending motion filed by Mark Meadows to move the case to federal court would impact the “speedy trial” demand by Chesebro and Powell. As a general matter, if the case is moved to federal court, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would apply. I suspect the “speedy trial” provision in Georgia law would be viewed as a procedural rule, and not substantive law, and would no longer apply.

But Chesebro asserted his right under Georgia law to a speedy trial on August 24, and in response the Trial Judge set the trial for October 23 — 60 days after the motion.

I’m not certain as to exactly how under Georgia law the invocation of this speedy trial right by one defendant effects the case as to co-defendants. But basic procedural due process and trial rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution almost certainly compel that the defendant demanding a speedy trial be severed out of the larger case so as to not compromise the rights of co-defendants and their counsel to adequately prepare for trial. I’m going to assume that Willis’ office anticipated that this would happen with at least one defendant because the idea that they might have been caught off-guard by the Chesebro and Powell motions would be tantamount to rank incompetence.

Let’s now turn to the motion that was filed by DA Fani Willis in response to the trial setting and some of the claims made in it.