The "Fight" Over A Trial Date in the Trump Documents Case Is Really No Fight At All

No Principle of Law Or Procedure Gives the Prosecution Any Leverage To Force A Trial On A Schedule Preferred by The Government

This story is almost comical to me, and I suspect it’s comical to many other experienced federal criminal trial practitioners.

The media and left-wing legal pundits playing for more social media attention seem to think the issue of when a trial date will be set is an early test of how Judge Cannon will conduct herself while presiding over the case.

But there is simply no “there there” when it comes to the dispute that exists between the Smith SCO’s proposed trial schedule seeking a December trial date, and the Trump/Nauta team’s proposal tha not trial date be set prior to the November 2022 Presidential election.

This subject was put on the agenda for a hearing in the case on Tuesday July 18, but the reporting in the aftermath of the hearing said no decision was reached in court, and Judge Cannon indicated that she would put out a written scheduling order. The reports were that she seemed skeptical about the likelihood of having a December trial, but was not willing to accept the defense proposal to put off any trial until after the election.

The idea that observers and pundits were going to be able to discern some deep understanding from reading the tea leaves coming out of this hearing was giggle-inducing to begin with. It makes no different that Donald Trump is the defendant in this case. An early hearing to discuss a mundane issue like trial setting and discovery details happens in EVERY federal criminal case. I’ve been in a thousand or more such hearings, and the same subjects repeat themselves case after case after case.

And those are the issues that were always going to dominate the discussion of setting a trial date in this case. There are basic legal and practical considerations when it comes to setting an initial trial date, and anyone with any decent amount of experience in the practice knows that you only write down these initial dates in pencil because the almost always change.