CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller explains how grand jury would arrive at indictment of former President Trump
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in Manhattan Thursday.
The indictment pertains to allegations linked to a business records investigation related to a "hush money" payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges.
A grand jury convenes in secret, so we do not know the exact charges on which Mr. Trump has been indicted. But CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller explained what a grand jury indictment means – and when we could find out what the charges are.
"The way it works is when a grand jury votes to indict somebody – in New York, it takes at least 12 grand jurors to vote to indict, and there has to be a minimum of 16 grand jurors in the room at the time. Once they vote to indict, the foreman of the grand jury will sign off on the indictment. They will literally carry that indictment in to the chief judge," Miller said. "The chief judge then will look at it, and it's up to the chief judge of the criminal court over there to either seal it or release it, and at that time, once it's released, you will know the exact number of charges on that document."
There were reports that some of the allegations against Mr. Trump regarding hush money would be in the misdemeanor range – but Miller said this case would need to involve a felony.
"It's my understanding that if it is only a misdemeanor, it can't be charged because of the statute of limitations – which places a time limit from the date of the crime to the date of the charge – has already passed. So in order for this to be an effective charge, it would have to be a felony," Miller said, "and from what we're hearing in the media so far is that in order for that to become a felony, it has to somehow violate some election law as far as payments that would affect an election that weren't reported as payments for the election."
Miller also said there are some unusual elements to the grand jury proceedings in this case – in particular given how lengthy they were.
"That's not usually the way it works. Grand jury indictments and presentations to a grand jury usually take less than a half hour," Miller said. "They usually have the prosecutor and the witness going to the grand jury, the witness is sworn in, he testifies… the witness leaves the grandy jury room. The grand jury says what other witnesses they would like to hear from, and at that time, the district attorney goes back in and at some point says, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we're asking you to vote on this indictment.'"
In this case, there were numerous witnesses over days and weeks.
"I tell your right now, that's never happened in the history of the Cook County grand jury," Miller said. "It's never done that way."
Miller said he suspects that one or more grand jurors said to the prosecutors: "We're really not comfortable right now – do you have anything else you could tell us to bolster what we think the evidence should be? We're really not sure. We're not sure that if we vote right now, we have 12 votes." In response, the district attorney likely called more witnesses.
Miller also weighed in on whether we will see former President Trump in handcuffs.
"If they extend him a courtesy – and they might – they may not make him walk down the hall with handcuffs on," Miller said. "But I suspect he may say to them, 'I want you to put those handcuffs on me,' and when he walks in front of your cameras, he's going to make sure everybody behind the camera sees that those handcuffs are on his wrists."