IU law professor breaks down Trump’s Georgia indictments
INDIANAPOLIS — A professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law told I-Team 8 the four new indictments of former President Donald Trump in Georgia for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election results in the state.
This is by far the most complicated case Trump is facing because it’s using racketeering law, more commonly known as RICO.
“It was originally sort of envisioned for prosecuting drug traffickers and mobsters and so forth where doing one particular thing might not be illegal, but the pattern of conduct adds up to an illegal act,” Steve Sanders, a professor of law, said.
Sanders explained the impact using RICO law will have on the case.
“I think it’s actually going to make the case more complicated because it involves the prosecutor bringing in and persuading the jury about more facts — (that those) particular facts happened and they added up to this course of conduct.
There will be a lot of efforts by the defendants to say, ‘Well, a phone call, or a text message, there’s nothing illegal about that.’ And the prosecutor has to keep reminding the jury that it’s not those isolated events it’s the whole pattern that it adds up to,” Sanders said.
Even though the RICO indictment by Georgia Prosecutor Fani Willis clumps 19 defendants together, including former President Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, a jury will be making verdicts individually.
“A jury could decide that this person didn’t actually do any of those things, or were not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this particular person was involved in that enterprise,” Sanders said.
Another complicated factor for the case is the other indictments Trump is facing. Sanders said he is eager to see the sequence of which case ends up going to trial first.