Alina Habba may have doomed Trump's appeal by 'crossing the line' with judge: legal expert

Alina Habba, the Trump attorney in the spotlight of both his federal defamation case (where he suffered a jury verdict of a whopping $83.3 million) and the pending judgement expecting to come soon in the state civil fraud case that threatens his real estate empire, has done harm to her client by her bombastic rants and flouting the judge's orders, a legal expert said.

Former special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense and NYU law professor Ryan Goodman appeared on CNN explaining the shortcomings of Habba, who tried the patience of U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan by trying to argue the facts of the case — when those were already established.

And it could undermine Trump's hopes for a favorable result when he appeals.

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"I think she hurts herself on appeal because she's not coming up to the line, crossing the line the judge has said."

Habba and her famous client arrived ten minutes late to the proceedings and were admonished for delaying them.

That led to volley between Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, and Habba over slides from Trump's social media postings.

Kaplan objected to a slide being used and the judge scolded Habba, "You are not showing the slide."

Habba then attempted to argue back, "Your Honor, Ms. Kaplan stipulated --"

"Sit down," he said, cutting her off. He added, "You are on the verge of spending some time in the lock-up."

Habba appeared to laugh it off.

This isn't the kind of rapport an attorney should carry with a judge, Goodman said.

"I teach law students this would be class 101 what you should never do in a courtroom because she's also in a sense dirtying herself in terms of credibility vis-a-vis, the jury."

He added:

"The judge is probably the most credible person in the jury's eyes. The jury doesn't just have a relationship with the two lawyers but it's also the judge. He's the trusted source."

That makes the judge's censuring of Habba so beyond the pale.

"For him to tell her, 'You keep violating this!' and also 'Making false statements I have to correct' on her closing argument which is little unusual — I think that's not good news trying to serve her client because the jury is seeing all of that happen."

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