So if Trump is sitting in jail, found criminally guilty in his indictments, USA today would be justified in what, calling him allegedly guilty, in case he feels like bankrupting them with his money? I find this very hard to beleive.
If he is found guilty, he could make the argument that publications making that claim prior to the verdict swayed the jury’s opinion. One would think an informed jury is always a good thing, but American courts are very strict about the information they present to the jury and in which context to allow them to make decisions. Not that it is likely, but it could result in a mistrial if it was proven that any juror read any news from the publication making the claim.
After he is found guilty, and assuming the verdict stands, publications are free to say he was convicted of X, Y, or Z freely.
once he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom, it’s much less risky. still risky, actually, but much less so. i remember during trump’s term he actually wanted to change libel laws specifically for stuff like this - you would have to be extremely careful what you say so you don’t get sued
Once he’s been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court they’ll drop the alleged.
This isn’t even a Trump specific thing, they use “alleged” or “accused” to refer to any crime committed by anyone that they haven’t been found guilty/liable for. Or will describe them as being arrested for specific charges or a specific incident if that’s what they’re reporting on. But in that case , they’ll refer to them as being arrested for X and then being alleged or accused of X, but not simply that they did X.
But Trump was found, in multiple courts, to have engaged in an insurrection. He does not need to have a criminal finding of that for it to be true and accepted fact in a court. I’m sorry, but this is a hard disagree from me, when state courts find as a matter of fact that he did engage in an insurrection its not an allegation anymore.
