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Was the 6-3 decision in Erlinger v. United States about Trump?

The 6-3 majority concentrated their ruling on the constitutional requirement that the jury must "unanimously find the sentence-enhancing conditions of the statute" before you can use the enhancement for use with sentencing.

It is not exactly the same issue, but appears to be the same logic. The jury must unanimously agree on all elements of the crime, including the secondary enhancement conditions. In this case all parties agreed that the constitution requires it, but the the Court of Appeals let is slide, which prompted the USSC to take the case and overrule the


Now in this case, the defendant suggested that the secondary elements required a jury determine whether or not the burglaries were part of a single incident or separate occasions. The judge enhanced the sentence on his own ruling that he had three prior convictions and that they were separate incidents. No jury made that determination.


Obviously Trump's case is different, in that a jury did make a determination on the secondary elements of the "falsified business records" charge. But it is still unclear if they unanimously found Trump covered up any particular specific crime. They were allowed to pick and choose whether they thought he covered up "any" crime and they did not have to agree on which crime. This is where the unanimous jury argument comes into play and how Erlinger might be part of Trump's appeal. Since it would appear that all parties agree that even the secondary elements of a crime requires a unanimous jury finding.

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