“No one is above the law.” The phrase has been uttered thousands of times, but one of those who recently solemnly proclaimed it was the president of the United States, Joe Biden, after his predecessor Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 crimes. This Friday, the prosecutor who accuses Hunter Biden of three crimes used those same words in a court in Wilmington (Delaware) to ask the jury to rule against the president’s son. The accused has declined the option to testify, so the parties have presented their conclusions and the jury has retired to deliberate.
There is no doubt that the son of the now president bought a Colt Cobra revolver on October 12, 2018 at StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply, a firearms store along Highway 202, north of Wilmington (Delaware). He filled out a form in which he denied being an illegal user or addict of any stimulant, narcotic drug or any other controlled substance.
The prosecutor has presented evidence of Hunter Biden’s addictions at trial, with excerpts from his own memoirs, Beautiful things, in which he acknowledges that he was addicted to drugs for four years until March 2019. His ex-wife and two ex-girlfriends testified to prosecutors about his habitual use of crack cocaine and their failed efforts to help him detoxify. A woman, who met Hunter Biden in 2017 at a club striptease where he worked, he described how he smoked crack every 20 minutes while staying with him in a hotel.
His lawyer has argued that at that precise moment he could believe he was drug-free after having completed rehabilitation sessions in August 2018. The defense maintains that the prosecutor has failed to prove that Hunter Biden used drugs or was addicted in the previous month. to buy the revolver. The accused could, according to this thesis, think that he was temporarily clean and, therefore, not have knowingly lied when purchasing the revolver, which would exonerate him of the crime.
The traces of cocaine on the packaging where the revolver appeared (despite the doubts raised that they were analyzed months later) and the text messages he sent just in the days after the purchase, acknowledging the consumption of crack, They play against him, but the defense clings to that possible reasonable doubt about whether he was a consumer or addict at the time of the purchase. The lawyers believe that the accusation is based on conjecture, indications and suspicions, but not on evidence, while the prosecutors are blunt: “If this trial does not prove that Hunter Biden is a drug addict crack or an illegal user, then no one is a crack addict or illegal user,” they say.
unanimous verdict
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The jury does not need to argue its decision and its deliberations are secret. The verdict must be unanimous: all 12 must agree or there will be no verdict. They can take as much time as they consider necessary to deliberate.
The president’s son is accused of three crimes: false statement when purchasing a firearm; false statement in documents to be kept on file by the gun seller and illegal possession of a firearm. The maximum sentences that Hunter Biden faces are up to 10 years for the first offense, 5 for the second and another 10 for the third, along with fines of up to $250,000 for each of them and up to three years of freedom. guarded In total, then, the maximum would be 25 years in prison, but these are maximum penalties. For someone with no criminal record, rehabilitated and when the illegal purchase and possession of the weapon is not accompanied by any other violent crime, prison sentences are not frequent.
Hunter Biden initially admitted the illegal purchase and possession of the weapon as part of an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office to be sentenced with lesser penalties for two tax crimes. The Prosecutor’s Office waived pursuing the purchase of the gun in exchange for him staying away from drugs for two years and for him to renounce owning a firearm in the future. The agreement, however, was derailed at the moment it was going to be endorsed. Judge Maryellen Noreika, appointed by Trump, rejected it due to the different interpretation of the agreement between the prosecution and the defense and pressure from the Republicans. Although she regularized the pending payments, the president’s son has been charged since December with nine alleged tax crimes before the California courts. The trial is scheduled for September.
In closing arguments Monday, the prosecutor told jurors to focus on the “overwhelming” evidence against Hunter Biden and not to pay attention to members of the president’s family sitting in the courtroom, including the first lady. Jill Biden, according to the Associated Press. “All of this is not evidence,” Wise said, extending his hand and motioning for the jury to look around the room. “The people sitting in the room are not evidence.”
Defense attorney Abbe Lowell argued that prosecutors have failed to prove their allegations. He told jurors that the fact that his client has a famous last name does not change the fact that he is presumed innocent — like any other defendant — until proven guilty. “With my dying breath in this case, I ask for the only verdict that will force prosecutors to do what the law requires of them”: a verdict of not guilty, Lowell said.
Lowell said there are no witnesses to Hunter Biden’s drug use in the 11 days he had the gun. And he suggested his client lied about where she was in text messages to his brother Beau’s widow. The prosecutor suggests that these texts show drug use and drug deals in the days after the gun was purchased.
The first lady, the president’s brother, James, and other family members have sat in the front row of the courtroom in the final session of the trial. Joe Biden said last week that he would accept the jury’s verdict and ruled out a presidential pardon for his son. “No one is above the law.”
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