for more i'm joined by legal analyst danny cevallos. danny, let's talk about that deposition for a minute. it clearly wasn't helpful to the former president. is that an issue for lawyers going forward as he faces other potential cases? >> yes. the lesson to be learned if you get trump into a deposition, he might stay on script for a little while, but sooner or later, he veers into improv, and improv is bad for him. for example, saying the plaintiff in this case was not his type had nothing to do with any kind of defense. it only hurt him in the end. in addition, defending the "access hollywood" tape instead of distancing himself from it also didn't help. all that evidence created by trump himself. it had nothing to do with the case in chief. it was something that

nbc legal analyst danny cevallos is back with us. on it is to create what they call sanctuary cities for the unborn. invoking a 150-year-old federal law that restricts the mailing of to pushing these bans. what are the options there for people who want to allow a clinic to open? >> cities that pass ordinances or other kinds of rules have to do so at least in a way that doesn't conflict with both state law and federal law because if they do, then those laws, those ordinances would be invalidated almost from inception. but in this case, the municipalities appear to be relying on an 1870s era federal law called the comstock act which was an anti-vice law, which they say can be used to prohibit the mailing of abortion bills. now, the biden administration says that's not what the comstock says at all. it does not prohibit the mailing of abortion bills. no court has weighed in on it. the mere fact that the biden administration is saying this is our interpretation of this federal law is interesting. it certainly is relevant, but it's not co

that's what the judge instructed the jury. >> i'll ask you to stand by and bring in legal analyst danny cevallos. danny, explain what this verdict means and the split nature of it on these questions. >> the plaintiff here had really two claims, one was for defamation and the other was for the actual sexual assault. and the reason that happened was that originally the statute of limitations had long expired so the plaintiff here filed a claim for defamation, essentially saying that when trump call her a liar he defamed her. when new york passed a statutory one-year window for all previously expired claims of sexual abuse civil claims to be refiled, within half an hour of that statute going into effect carroll's legal team filed this civil rape case against donald trump and, of course, while the jury did not find that trump raped e. jean carroll they did find he sexually abused her subjecting her to the sexual contact without her consent. so i mean this is a very clear message that -- i have to say, i have some of these cases under these one-year window and the challenges is always finding evidenc

joining us now is msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos. from this new information, this letter? >> fani willis is asking the court to devote, clear its resources, clear the calendar. that can only mean that she plans on big news. whether that means an indictment of trump himself or trump adjacent individuals, we obviously still don't know, but that is a very clear message that she has set a deadline. i mean, she's almost locked herself in to that deadline. imagine if she asked judges, judges who she works with every day in and out to clear their calendar for one month and then she doesn't indict or use those resources that month, and instead does it a couple of months later. those judges would not be very happy. she must be pretty certain that she's not going to burn them, not going to burn the courts and that she's going to stick to this deadline. it's a rather large window, three weeks, but it is a window she's committed to. >> three months from now, though. if she's that certain at this point, why not sooner? >> because i think planning

here in the studio is nbc's legal annually danny cevallos.y what tacopina is claiming and what we'll expect in court. >> reporter: he's claiming the judge has been biased for e. jean carroll. he raises a number of issues where the judge ruled he couldn't go further or sustained objections basically trying to say that the judge is favoring here and not allowing him to do what he wants to do. not a big surprise the judge denied this motion the minute court began this morning, essentially donald trump's attorneys were asking the judge to be very critical of himself. that's very unlikely to ever happen in a court. i think many legal observers will tell you this is perhaps setting up a basis for appeal if the case gets that far. so cross examination has continued this morning. mr. tacopina indicated he was about halfway through when court concluded on thursday, the last day. so we're expecting this to go on for several hours more today, and then redirect. so she will probably spend her third full day on the witness stand going back and forth. the

msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos is back with me.ays expected to happen and while some families did want their day in court, others argued it would retraumatize them. tell us what's happening there today. >> reporter: yeah, chris, it is a somber mood right now from our team inside of the courthouse. we know that a rabbi from the tree of life is speaking right now. and we're told that bowers is paying close attention, the mood in the courtroom is tense as this is a case that many wondered, we know there was a lot of disagreement between the prosecution and the defense, the defense trying to ensure life in prison, the prosecution saying no, this was a case that was going to go to trial. there is that divisiveness. members of the congregation, victims, family member of the victims, who don't want to see bowers sentenced to death. others saying the punishment does fit the crime, opening arguments in this case for the prosecution about 40 minutes in which they basically laid out the entire case going over some of the details of the shooti

and joining me now is msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos, just starting with where joe tacopina started, trying to get the case thrown out, trying to say it was a mistrial. the judge denied that. >> the judge was never going to grant the motion. the defense knew the judge was not going to grant the motion. and instead, i do this too, we file motions that we know are never going to succeed for other reasons. number one, he's making a record. this case goes up on a appeal, he's preserved the issues. he knew the judge was not going to grant a motion that attacked the judge. judges don't do that. >> explain how he attacked the judge, said he was politically motivated. >> really he's arguing a common argument for defense attorneys, all of these calls on evidence are going against me, going against the defense, and after a while you start thinking it's not fair. admittedly i have been there too. the defense is making the argument, hey, judge, on all of these evidentiary issues not only are you getting them wrong, you're getting them wrong against us. when it comes to evidence, judges have alm

joining me now is criminal defense foreign danny cevallos and former fbi general counsel and former memberhe mueller probe, both nbc news analysts. danny, let's start on e. jean carroll. when he said the things he said about her the other night on that cnn town hall, i remember watching and thinking he just lost a defamation suit over this, what is he doing? is there no recourse for e. jean carroll? can the judge change the amount of the punitive damages? is there something that can happen if somebody found liable for something continues to do the thing that they were found -- i know guilty is not the root term but they did. >> liable. two or three smart attorneys i know immediately after the town hall reached out and said the same thing. this is an issue essentially established in the law. if it has been determined in this case with these litigants there's no reason why e. jean carroll can't go back to court and bring this again and possibly have very little to do in terms of meeting her burden of proof. i have to say this. on the one side, this case aside, as a general rule i am skeptica

joining us now, danny cevallos. danny, this is a big talker here in new york city.ews." penny is a marine who faces this charge today. what's your sense of how this plays out? he says this man walked on the train, started threatening people, said "i don't care if i live or die," and he felt like something bad was about to happen. he put him in the choke hold that ultimately killed him. >> here are a couple points i expect to see in the defense of this case. i think they could be successful. i think you might see an acquittal here. first, in new york, when it comes to self-defense, the state has to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. what that means, a defendant in new york is not only presumed innocent, they're presumed justified when they use deadly force because the state has the burden to disprove it. in addition, the marine here can be mistaken in his use of force as long as he actually perceived a threat, and this may be tricky for him, the use of force was reasonable. there's always a reasonable element. part three, he's a marine. it may not play

let's bring in msnbc legal analyst danny cevallos now. so danny, can an 18 buy a gun?overs a geographic area and sometimes like the state of new jersey or virginia has several different distributions. but in theory, it only applies within that district, but unless there is a nationwide injunction. but here is the thing. none of this matters this is not the final determination. it will be appealed and there is a split on whether 18-year-old are considered citizens under the second amendment. due process issue. two main questions. whether the second amendment includes the rye to prosecutor firearms. do 18 to 20-year-olds, are these people that are citizens covered under the second amendment. this court concluded that they are. >> yes, they are. in fact, this is part of the ruling yesterday. i want to read it to you. many of the rights and responsibilities this judge notes, quote. what do you make of that argument? >> so interesting because the plaintiffs who wanted to buy the guns argued that, hey we should look at this in modern times. in modern times we think of adults

we're joined by danny cevallos to discuss the case. river says she only had two drinks that night and yet law enforcement is saying her blood alcohol content and level was more than three times the legal limit. so how do you prove this? what does liability look like? >> i practiced dui defense law and almost every client will tell you i had two drinks that nights. that seems to be the standard. a blood alcohol reading can be faulty, it can be subject to attack. you might get some high readings as a result of an accident but if the testing was done perform, then that's probably going to be admissible and even if it wasn't in some states you could just admit the fact that somebody appeared visibly intoxicated and that can be by the testimony of the police officer. so it's the dui and the reckless homicide. the homicide is a much bigger concern. the dui is ordinaily a misdemeanor. it's the homicide that is going to carry the stiffest penalty. >> if she is charged what kind of sentencing could she face? >> anywhere from five to ten years. i

let's bring in danny cevallos. so, danny, can you help us put this in context?cted by the opioid epidemic. >> hugely significant because it directly affects the amount of recovery they can get, obviously, against the sackler family but to some degree also against the bankrupt estate which is what it's called under the bankruptcy code which is the former company itself and all of its asset, so the way bankruptcy works is when a company gets in trouble and goes into bankruptcy, that means it can't pay out all of its debts so the court basically says, well, let's freeze this estate where it is and then let's start lining up all the creditors to see who feeds on the corporate carcass and who gets what knowing that not everybody is going to get 100 cents on the dollar. that's the way bankruptcy works. what makes this interesting and unique is that normally you don't have outside individuals coming in and saying, hey, what if we contribute some money to this estate? can we get the same bankruptcy protection? because what happens is the bankruptcy code allows the court

also with us criminal defense attorney, and msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos. you? >> reporter: well, we just finished the defense attorney's closing arguments, about two hours worth of argument where joe tacopina tried to say that e. jean carroll and two friends were involved in a conspiracy to bring down donald trump politically. she started writing her book in 2017, published in 2019, when former president trump was in the white house, and before the next election. he has cast her and her friends as democrats, die-hard democrats who just have such disdain for president trump that they would do this, that she would concoct this story that she was raped in a department store and put it in a book to try and sell books. that's their side of the story. on the other side, carroll's attorneys are the plaintiffs, they say she's a courageous woman who came forward with the story, the world had changed with the me too movement, and she felt all of these years later she could talk about this attack that happened, this alleged attack that happened back in 1996. we'll se

i want to bring in danny cevallos.'s just back up because penny has already been charged with manslaughter over neely's death so why exactly is there a grand jury looking at an indictment? >> because the charge is really one-sided. all the charge now represents is the d.a.'s office, alvin bragg's decision that this person, the defendant, should be charged with a crime. under new york procedure and it's a similar procedure nationwide, the people, the state doesn't actually bring charges until one of two things, in new york that is almost always a grand jury indictment, in other words, presented to the people and the people hand down the indictment. in other jurisdictions, pennsylvania, which we were just talking about, often those cases begin without a grand jury by criminal complaint, information in other jurisdictions but in new york state, the people speak through the grand jury. so while technically the defendant here is charged with a crime, he hasn't formally been charged with a crime until a grand jury returns an

. >> nbc news legal analyst danny cevallos joins us now. i covered the shooting in buffalo. in particular because it was racially motivated and had hut -- put his hasn'ts on social media. >> one theory of liability here is that these products are essentially defective in their design, whether the algorithm or whatever the case may be and i think that's a really uphill battle for the plaintiffs because they're essentially saying that these products, these social media outlet, the way they're designed is itself a problem. and i think they're going to have a hard time with the obvious intervening cause of it was an actual shooter who did the evil. it was the people who used the platform who were evil and even if there were algorithms that guided people towards certain information, that still, i think, will be difficult because just the mere exchange of information, we have come to think of the social media platforms as -- we sort of understand they're not liable for the speech on them. >> danny, we have seen these other lawsuits against gunmakers, so get off the platform but gu

. -- danny cevallos. >> he said he was doing it in the interest of justice. he was well aware of the comments the former president made on the golf course that he was going to come and testify. the fact of the matter is mr. trump's attorneys in court said he's not going to testify and there's no indication today there's any change or movement on that. the jury as you pointed out has seen mr. trump testify in this deposition. we had only see transcripts of it. today we saw the actual video footage. it is very powerful, and i would think, i'm not a lawyer, but i would think the bottom line is that ms. carroll's attorneys are very glad that that's what the jury is going to see of mr. trump. he insults ms. carroll, he calls her a whack job, sick, a nut job. he even attacks and is disparaging of the attorney, the female attorney who was questioning him saying that you wouldn't be on my list either in the context of someone of who he would want to be involved with, put it that way. >> i know you're putting it diplomatically. >> it's very raw, it's very graphic. it'

is outside that courthouse in washington, and still with us barbara mcquade, also joining us danny cevallosnow about this verdict? >> reporter: we know there's at least a partial verdict in this case. the jury had sent a note a couple of days ago asking what they could do and the judge instructed them that they could indeed return a partial verdict if necessary, if they are hung up on any counts. so that seems like what we might have a situation here is that, you know, this could be a full verdict or a partial verdict. given the jury's note before, we could be looking at potentially a partial verdict in this case. this case started back in december during jury selection, and opening arguments were in january. we're now in may. this has been a very long lasting trial stretched out over several months, and you know, jurors had a lot they had to look at here. i think one of the most complicated questions for the jurors to ask really had to do with enrique tarrio who's the top head of the proud boys, and you know, he wasn't there on january 6th. he was actually at a hotel in baltimore. i think

. >> nbc news legal analyst danny cevallos joins us now.n be appealed but in terms of the legal issue, this was really limited to the sheet music, in other words, the actual notes that appear and the other aspects of the sheet music as the song is written and that term is used literally as opposed to what you hear and sort of feel from the songs when you play them together and when played together, especially if in the same key the songs do sound remarkably similar but mechanically there are a lot of differences, the melody is remarkably different but for a lot of people maybe the melody and that's the part the singer sing, you know that, kate, the melody is maybe not as important as the chords, the rhythm, the tempo, the bass line, but looking at the sheet music there are significant differences. the most significant to me in this four-chord progression and hear sheeran talk about it that the second chord is not the same chord in both songs. >> i do sing, you're right and do know how to read sheet music as well but i'm not a lawyer so let

let's bring in danny cevallos. why do we introduce this story into the dialogue? of, and the flaws. >> yeah, and there's human error here as well, and the lawyer officially filed the document with the cases, and the judge says -- he issues an order saying file copies of the cases so we can look at them and they go back to chatgpt and file the cases that chatgpt gave them. then we see even later in an affidavit confirming this that the lawyer typed in a request to chatgpt, hey, are these cases that you gave me real? chatgpt says, yes, they are. so there's plenty of human lawyer error here. chatgpt might be a valid tool for lawyers but you have to verify at least at this stage because it's really in it's infancy, and when you file something to the court, you are verifying something is accurate and it's not verified if you only ask chatgpt if it's verified. i don't appreciate jonathan lemire texting me to ask if i was the lawyer that filed this. >> i am a thorough reporter. >> we thought you were coming for a me a couple paw. >> you will see professional discipline,