The trial of the previous CEO of the defunct crypto alternate FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), is quick approaching the decision stage because the prosecution closed its case final week. Following this, Bankman-Fried and his legal professionals are set to open their protection (or possibly not) this week in what might show very pivotal as to the path of the case and SBF’s destiny.
What Will Sam Bankman-Fried’s Legal professionals Do?
Particularly, SBF’s trial will proceed on October 26, when he and his legal professionals might want to inform the courtroom on what step they intend to take subsequent. As to the following steps they’ll take, they’ll both select to open a protection and current witnesses and proof to the jury. They will additionally select to waive the case and never put up any protection.
They’ll most definitely need to put up a protection, contemplating that the prosecution (after 3 weeks of calling nearly twenty witnesses) can arguably be stated to have discharged the burden of proving SBF’s guilt past cheap doubt. As such, it will likely be an enormous gamble for the protection to easily waive the case and ask the jury to provide a verdict solely on the proof adduced by the prosecution.
Assuming they determine to open a protection, there isn’t any doubt that they are going to constrained within the witnesses and proof they’ll put ahead. Concerning witnesses, the protection is already handicapped as Decide Kaplan already excluded the seven professional witnesses that it had proposed to name. He said that their testimonies had been both irrelevant or might confuse the jury.
At this level, additionally it is unlikely that the protection can get anybody who had shut ties to the happenings at FTX to testify of their favor, because the prosecution appears to have exhausted all these witnesses. Nothing appears to be going within the protection’s favor, and it’s comprehensible because the prosecution has been in charge of this case from the get-go.
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FTX Founder’s Legal professionals Can No Longer Play It Secure
Of their amended proposed request to cost, SBF’s legal professionals requested the jury to “study and consider” SBF’s testimony (if relevant) identical to they’d for the testimony of different witnesses. This request may be very vital, particularly if the protection decides to take a raffle by permitting Bankman-Fried to take the stand, which many would argue that they need to.
The percentages should not of their favor, and the legal professionals in all probability comprehend it. With a view to have any probability of adjusting the narrative, they may must name the one one who had first-hand information of all the things that occurred from the start, and that particular person occurs to be Sam Bankman-Fried.
It’s undoubtedly an enormous gamble, however it looks as if the one choice they’ve at this level as, barring any flip of occasions throughout cross-examination, Bankman-Fried might assist paint an image that implies that he’s not the villain that his former associates have made him out to be.
If SBF takes the stand, the jury should get rid of any type of bias and study his testimony as that of an harmless man who is solely making an attempt to make a case for himself and never one who’s ‘mendacity’ to avoid wasting face.
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