'Could get very ugly': Legal experts focus on final day of Fani Willis hearing
March 01, 2024
The final day of hearings in the complaint against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and a prosecutor on her team, Nathan Wade, began with legal analysts predicting that the arguments against her have failed to prove she should be disqualified.
The issue was whether Willis hired Wade because of their relationship and then benefited from his gifts to her. Law professor Joyce Vance said lawyers for Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the Fulton County RICO case have failed to prove that.
"Legal proceedings often turn on the burden of proof," she wrote on social media. "Here, it’s the defendants who bear that burden. And as salacious as the proceedings have been, they seem to have fallen short. You can’t prove something through a witness who won’t testify to it, and Bradley wouldn’t," she said referring to Terrence Bradley, Wade's former divorce attorney and law partner who was called to give evidence.
Meanwhile, she explained, Bradley had a motive to lie about it and badmouth Wade: she said he left the law practice after an allegation of sexual assault was made against him.
"Texts show he lured the defense lawyer in, but abandoned his claims about the relationship when it came to his testimony on the stand," wrote Vance.
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Fellow law professor Anthony Michael Kreis outlined what he was looking for on the final day of the hearing.
"(1) Arguments over the conflict standard," he wrote on social media. "(2) Is the locus of the argument around when the relationship ended? (3) What does Judge McAfee do with the recent affidavits? (4) Does everyone agree that Terrance Bradley is a liar? And, if so, (it basically has to be) how does that factor into arguments?"
"Finally, is the defense going to lean into an argument Willis and Wade did not testify with candor to the court? That could get very ugly. I’ll be looking for any signal from Judge McAfee if that takes center stage."
You can watch the hearing in the video below or at the link here.
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