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Trump trial live: Hush money was 'pure' election fraud, prosecution says - BBC News Trump trial live: Hush money was 'pure' election fraud, prosecution says - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
Sam Cabral The stakes of today's opening statements were very high, according to Harvard Law professor Ronald S Sullivan Jr.
BBC News "Opening statements often frame the entire rest of the trial," he told the BBC earlier this morning.
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, tells the BBC this trial may come down to whether or not Donald Trump himself decides to testify. "Some studies suggest up to 80% of jurors make up their minds at the end of openings, and most of them - the overwhelming majority - retain that same opinion throughout the trial and vote in that way during deliberations."
The prosecution, in his view, "have forecast for a long time how they were going to proceed and didn't depart from that" in opening statements. Those findings are backed by what Sullivan says are the concepts of primacy and recency. It means that people remember best what they hear first and what they hear last.
But Trump's defence lawyers, who are under his watchful eye in court, "have to thread the needle to keep him satisfied but not allow him to do anything that would upset the judge or the jury". As a result, he said, lawyers must "start with a bang" so as to capture the attention and imagination of each juror.
Tobias said appealing to the common sense of the jury was a smart move because proving that there was more to the hush-money payments than merely covering up a story may be a bridge too far to cross for some jurors.
"Everybody is waiting in anticipation of Michael Cohen," he added.
"He's the lynchpin on the facts and so it may be his word against Trump's, if Trump takes the stand."
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