Comment on Latest Trump hush-money battle: how to instruct jurors on the coverup of a coverup and crimes within crimes

Pool/Getty, Kym Illman/Getty, Chris Graythen/Getty, Tyler Le/BITestimony concluded Tuesday in the Trump hush-money trial in Manhattan.The parties then argued over how the judge will instruct the jury on the law."Less is better," the judge has said. Still, the jury charge will be long and complex.Lawyers in the Donald Trump hush-money trial spent Tuesday afternoon in a spirited battle over this question: what will the judge tell jurors right before they begin their deliberations next week?The prosecution and defense fought for three hours over this, the so-called "jury charge," splitting hairs over what language New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan will use to instruct the seven-man, five-woman jury on the law.The level of skill and fervor in these arguments was no surprise.The jury charge is so important, so sacrosanct, that Merchan will order the doors to his courtroom sealed for its duration, with no one in the well or audience allowed to enter or leave.He will then tell jurors something like this:"Under our law, a person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when, with intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof, that person makes or causes a false entry in the business records of an enterprise."NYCourts.govThese are the opening paragraphs to the New York state court system's jury-charge guidelines for falsifying business records in the first degree.It's the basic starting template for any New York judge who needs to charge a jury on what's known in legal shorthand as first-degree falsifying.Trump has been charged with 34 counts of this one felony.