criminal-law jury criminal-procedure federal-courts bench-trial
Does Trump have the right to waive a jury trial and request a bench trial in the classified documents case?
<p>In the Federal criminal case against Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, does former president Trump have the ability to waive a jury trial and request a bench trial?</p>
<p>Given Aileen Cannon's history in cases involving the defendant, and potential bias towards the person who appointed her would this be a good legal strategy on his part?</p>

<p>While the right to a jury trial is waiveable, in order to have a bench trial in a federal district court, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/right_to_jury_trial" rel="noreferrer">the court and prosecutor generally must agree</a>.</p>
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<p>before any waiver can become effective, the consent of government counsel and the sanction of the court must be had</p>
<p>(<em>Patton v. United States</em>, <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep281/usrep281276/usrep281276.pdf#page=37" rel="noreferrer">281 U.S. 276, 312</a> (1930))</p>
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<p>This is codified in Rule 23(a) of the <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/rules-of-criminal-procedure.pdf" rel="noreferrer">Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure</a>.</p>
<p>However, just because the waiver <em>can</em> be (and generally <em>is</em>) conditioned on governmental consent, some courts have nonetheless allowed the defendant's request for a bench trial despite the lack of consent from the government. See e.g. <em>United States v. Panteleakis</em>, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-panteleakis" rel="noreferrer">422 F. Supp. 247</a> (D.R.I. 1976) (a trial against multiple defendants that would require considering &quot;approximately 1,000 exhibits,&quot; &quot;over a three month period,&quot; with some evidence admissible against some defendants while <em>in</em>admissible against others; and the government did not try to &quot;rebut the inference that substantial prejudice [in a trial by jury] is practically impossible to avoid under these circumstances&quot;).</p>
<p>This possibility appears to have been left open by the Supreme Court in <em>Singer v. United States</em>, <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep380/usrep380024/usrep380024.pdf" rel="noreferrer">380 U.S. 24</a> (1964):</p>
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<p>We need not determine in this case whether there might be some circumstances where a defendant's reasons for wanting to be tried by a judge alone are so compelling that the Government's insistence on trial by jury would result in the denial to a defendant of an impartial trial.</p>
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