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The criminal trial of former President Donald Trump is getting 24-hour media coverage, but much of the case is happening in the dark.
Everyone knows that cameras are banned in the courtroom. But other, lesser-known peculiarities of the court’s procedures have made critical aspects of the case opaque.
Behind the scenes, a maze of arcane rules and archaic systems has made it virtually impossible for the media — and the public — to access key motions and pretrial rulings in real time. New York’s docketing practices have not been updated for the digital age. The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, has imposed policies that force days or even weeks of delays before crucial documents become public. When they do, they have been subject to a heavy, court-imposed redaction process.
And Merchan frequently uses email to communicate with Trump’s defense lawyers and the prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. That’s led to a ballooning set of off-the-book messages that are shielded from the public.
The result is that one of the most consequential chapters of American history is being drafted with missing pages and invisible ink.
“Especially in a case like this, where 48 hours can turn news into history, that’s not acceptable,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University law school who specializes in legal ethics.
He described the redaction requirement in particular as an impediment to public access.
“The judge, with a responsibility to make the public informed, should have made it easier,” Gillers said, “and so should Bragg.”
Obsolete docket system
Some of the challenges with keeping the public apprised of developments in the case are baked into New York state courts’ antiquated procedures and are simply magnified by the significance of the case — in which Trump is accused of orchestrating a hush money scheme on the cusp of the 2016 election to conceal an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star.
For one thing, New York state criminal court simply doesn’t have an online docket; the only way to see many documents filed in the case is by visiting the clerk’s office in person in Lower Manhattan or requesting each filing from either the district attorney’s office or Trump’s lawyers. And while the judge publicly set some deadlines for certain filings, others happen without warning, meaning anyone interested in seeing it wouldn’t know to request it.
