Alexandria, Va.
U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, a 78-year-old jurist with a reputation for being tough on lawyers in his courtroom, showed none of the temper he’s flashed throughout the trial, now in its second week in Alexandria, Va., and instead instructed the jury to disregard his remarks made the day before excoriating prosecutors for allowing an expert government witness to sit in the courtroom before he testified.
Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, is accused of bank fraud and tax evasion. It’s the first trial to emerge from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether any of Trump’s associates conspired with those efforts, though Manafort’s case is not about those issues.
During Wednesday’s dust-up, Assistant U.S. attorney Uzo Asonye pointed out the judge previously had told prosecutors the witness could sit in the courtroom, and the judge shot back: “I don’t care what the transcript said. Maybe I made a mistake. Don’t do it again.”
Overnight, prosecutors filed a motion with the court asking the judge to tell the jury to ignore that criticism.
“While mistakes are a natural part of the trial process, the mistake here prejudiced the government by conveying to the jury that the government had acted improperly and had violated court rules or procedures,” the prosecutors wrote.
On Thursday morning, the judge told the jury, “I may well have been wrong,” adding that he had not read the court transcript. “I was probably wrong,” Ellis said.
“This robe doesn’t make me any more than a human,” he said, concluding, “Any criticism of counsel should be put aside — it doesn’t have anything to do with this case.”
Ellis’ eruptions have been noticed inside and outside the courtroom. Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics and evidence at New York University, said the judge was right to make a corrective statement to the jurors.
“The jury is very sensitive to what it perceives, correctly or not, to be the judge’s view of the case,” Gillers said. “A jury of lay people is going to be encouraged to reach a belief which could well be incorrect — that the judge knows who should win, and through his behavior he’s telegraphing that belief. And that’s why it’s critical that any judicial admonition, even mild ones, occur outside the jury’s presence.”
Ellis had repeatedly chided prosecutors, both in front of the jury and out of their hearing, during the trial. He has had far fewer outbursts directed at defense lawyers, but prosecutors have been doing the bulk of the questioning so far.
“Judge Ellis seems to want the lawyers to try the case the way he would try the case,” Gillers said. “There are judges like that, but that’s not good for trials. What Judge Ellis is doing is impeding the autonomy that the law grants to the advocates.”
After several days of testimony from the prosecution’s star witness, Manafort’s former right-hand man Rick Gates, the jury heard on Thursday from bank employees and executives who testified about the alleged false claims Manafort made to obtain millions of dollars in loans — the charges that carry the most potential prison time.
Prosecutors say that between 2010 and 2014, Manafort hid $15.5 million in overseas accounts, which he did not report to the IRS.