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Originally Posted by Sil_liS
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I agree, she emphasized that no final decision would be made until after the trial takes place.
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The "unusual" comment seems to be due to the fact that this is usually done by a magistrate judge, and not a district judge. But considering the high profile of the case letting her assistant judge handle the preliminary hearing wouldn't necessarily be the best idea.
The point of the hearing is to decide if there is probable cause for a trial. The judge found that there was, and produced a statement.
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I can't speak to if it's unusual or not but I'll note that Judge Cote spoke to this in the footnotes to her ruling. [bold added by me]
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The Court’s procedures for non-jury proceedings were discussed in detail at conferences held on June 22 and October 26, 2012, and May 8, 2013. As the parties were informed, the Court prepared a draft opinion in advance of the bench trial based on the witness affidavits and other documents submitted with the pretrial order and the arguments of counsel in their trial memoranda. At trial, the affiants swore to the truth of the contents of their affidavits and were tendered for cross and redirect examination, and the other trial evidence was formally received. The parties understood that the Court’s final findings of fact and conclusions of law would incorporate all of this evidence. Consistent with these procedures, and with the expectation that the Court had already prepared a draft opinion, the parties jointly asked the Court for its preliminary views on the merits at the final pretrial conference held on May 23, 2013.
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The parties jointly asked the Court for its preliminary views and this is being spun by some as evidence that she'd made up her mind before the trial. Maybe it's unusual for the parties to jointly ask for this or it's unusual for the judge to comply (because then they could be accused of bias).