“I would say, we just heard from Jonathan Turley … this is anything but standard. It’s the antithesis of standard,” McCarthy said. “The idea that they do not have to agree on what the other crime is. We spent six weeks wondering what is the other crime and at the end the thud we all get hit with, there’s three or four of ’em and you could pick one or the other and they don’t have to agree on it.”
There's already so much reversible error in this case that it almost feels as though Merchan has hit the 'f*** it' stage. I outlined my own take on these instructions in a previous Headline post, calling it Merchan's 'choose your own adventure' instruction. The real problem isn't that Merchan isn't requiring unanimity on the underlying crime, but that he didn't require the prosecution to prove one or more during the trial. These theories only emerged in closing arguments, and that's blatantly unconstitutional.
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